


Between Fantasy and Fun

by Syvia



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Humor, but is hopefully still entertaining, except they kind of did, recreational alcohol use, run for the hills, so meta it hurts, someone made an actual restaurant, the games didn't actually happen, the marionette is an angry little manpuppet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syvia/pseuds/Syvia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after the inception of the popular video game series, you are cordially invited to experience Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria like never before!  Or run screaming for the exit.</p><p>Still.  It's just a clever restaurant modeled after the video games.  Right?  There are no secrets or hidden agendas or dubious hiring procedures, right?</p><p>If only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to Freddy's

**Author's Note:**

> This is my love letter to the fandom; to Scott Cawthon for creating the games and sparking so much creativity, to everyone who played and posted on youtube, wrote songs, created art, animation, everyone who wrote fic. Whether I've seen your fan work or not, you're awesome. Thank you. All of you.
> 
> Last but not least to my beta and primary source of encouragement- thank you, Ceci~!
> 
> This is what happens when a writer with a small background in various performing arts listens to music inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, on repeat, for months. I started to envision stage direction for the songs. Those grew to become skits that eventually graduated into an entire fic with original characters and plot. 
> 
> This was written before the release of the fourth game. I may edit after it comes out, I may not. I will reflect any updates in the notes. The tags will update as we go on.
> 
> (See the end of each chapter for links to any fan-works mentioned.)

" _No._   No, you're kidding.  That's like naming a ship Titanic," Michi said in a horrified whisper.  
      
Jen, by comparison, was louder than necessary. "I KNOW, RIGHT?"  She kept Michi's hand in both of hers, bouncing gleefully as they both stared at the brazen red neon.  "You know you wanna go in.  _I_ wanna go in-"  
      
"Their sign is done in comic sans," Michi whispered.  "It's an affront to sense and-"  
      
"It's _perfect_ , c'mon!" and Jen pulled her- still protesting about the sign more than entering the restaurant, beneath glowing red letters which beckoned like the lit attic window in the creepy dilapidated house of every horror story ever;  
      
_Freddy Fazbear's Pizza_  
      
"The lobby music is _Les Toreadors_." Michi kept her voice low, as if she could somehow call less attention to herself than Jen already was, dragging her forward and giggling.

The _maître d'_ was a perfectly normal young woman in a white blouse and black vest.  She smiled at their approach.  Michi wasn't comforted.  
      
"Hi, welcome to Freddy Fazbear's.  Two?"  
      
"Yep," Jen answered, maintaining her death grip on Michi.  "We want to sit near the stage-"  
      
"No we don't," Michi broke in.  
      
"Yes," Jen said, holding back laughter, "we really, _really_ do."  
      
The _maître d'_ smiled, raising two menus and handing them to a waitress.  "Let me assure you, ladies, the animatronics are _perfectly_ safe. They do come off stage, but they do not touch any patrons who have not signed a waiver which gives them permission to do so.  There will be no biting that doesn't involve your teeth and our delicious food.  Beth will take you to your seats."

Michi was about to tell the _maître d'_ that she wasn't funny.  At all.  Then she felt someone standing next to her.  She barely heard the little voice greeting them as she turned, saw the balloons, and screamed.   
      
The child-sized animatronic had the nerve to look affronted.  The employees were nonplussed, as if this thing happened all the time.  Jen, the _traitor_ , was crying with mirth, leaning against Michi's shoulder and barely able to form words.  
      
"Aww, it's just Balloon Boy!  He's just saying hello!  C'mon.  Bye, Beebee!" Jen pulled her along, still snickering.   
      
Michi refused to turn at the sound of child-like laughter.  The little bastard was laughing at her.  She knew he was.  She didn't give a shit if all the sounds were pre-recorded or if it there was a speaker being controlled by some fabulous improv comedian watching them from behind the scenes.  It was deliberate and he was laughing at her discomfort.  She was embarrassed and pissed and-  
      
"Okay, I'll be good, I swear," Jen murmured, subdued but not all that apologetic.  "I won't even tell them what _special day_ it is, and I do appreciate you bringing me here.  _Really_."    

"Uh-huh," Michi said, trying to un-clench. Her heart was racing and if the place didn't serve alcohol, she swore to God-  
      
"C'mon, Mich, it's like one of those haunted houses-"  
      
"Which I also hate."  
      
"- and the more they see you're affected, the more they're going to bother you.  So just put on your professional face, have some fabulous pizza, and admire the pretty robots."  
      
The music was getting louder.  Like that one German restaurant that Jen also liked... and why couldn't they have gone there for her friend's birthday, Michi wondered as they followed Beth down a hallway and past a fairly well-muscled young man in purple pants, button-down shirt and baseball cap of no sports affiliation.  
      
Michi stopped in her tracks.  Jen stopped with her.  
      
"Oh hey," Jen grinned, "you must be the phone guy."

The security guard forced a smile.  Michi found _that_ comforting, of all things, and wondered how many times the poor man had heard that joke _this_ week.  
      
"Nah, Jeremy Fitzgerald," he answered cheekily.  He reached for the brim of his purple baseball cap, "You wanna see my-"  
      
Michi wasn't sure what would freak her out more, the relief of seeing no brain matter or really well-done theater make-up that _resembled_ brain matter.  Either way _she_ grabbed _Jen_ and dragged her off behind the waitress.  Themed fucking restaurants.  She _hated_ themed restaurants.  

The seats were comfortable.  It was almost annoying how comfortable.  She grabbed the wine list from between the Parmesan, salt and pepper shakers and glanced over it.  "Can I get a hard lemonade, please?"  
      
Beth, bless her, didn't protest.  "I can put that in for you and your waitress will bring it over.  For you, miss?"   
      
"Oh, yeah," Jen grinned, holding the bottom of the list still in Michi's hand.  "Pirate punch?"  
      
"Your waitress will be right over." Beth handed them their menus and left.  Michi turned the wine list over and glanced at the alcohol composition of pirate punch.  She grimaced.  
      
"That will either be fantastic or horrific."  
      
Jen giggled, ignoring the menu in her hands in favor of what was happening on-stage.  She turned halfway out of her chair, then scooted it over for a better view. The table wasn't very big and Michi was only too happy to shift her chair in response to claim a larger portion of the table. She couldn’t see the performance... but of course now she could very clearly see the purple curtain at the left corner of the main stage.  She clenched her jaw and opened her menu. 

"You turned your back to them. That's just gonna make it worse," Jen sing-songed, just audible over the music coming from the stage.  It was coming from the stage, Michi realized.  There were speakers, but the voices- though synthesized- were coming from three distinct places, and the guitar and keyboard were being played live.  At least... it sounded that way.  She would have to turn around to be sure-  
      
"Could you figure out what you want, please?" Michi griped, "I'm actually hungry and they have a Hawaiian, but you said they have good pizza.  We should try something unusual if they have _good pizza_."  She was a pizza snob.  She could admit it.  Four years she’d spent living in New York had corrupted her.  
      
"I'm _just saying_ ," Jen grinned, leaning forward, "that they know you're not paying attention.  That's probably _not a good thing_.  That's like, _night-watch_ levels of bad-"  
      
"Oh look," Michi said, pointing at the menu, "goat cheese and caramelized onion."  
      
"Ugh." Jen tilted her menu up quickly after that. "Say not the 'o' word."  
      
Michi didn't give in to the taunt.  She glanced at the other diners.  There were families, which she would have expected.  There were children ignoring their cheesy pizza to watch the animatronic performers, parents nudging them to keep eating or stop standing on the bench seat because you can see perfectly fine sitting on your bottom, sweetie.   
      
There were far more groups of adults, pairs like her and Jen or date-night couples cuddling on bench seats against the back wall.  There was a fully-stocked bar on the left wall and several thirty-somethings settled on the stools, drinking beer and grinning just like children as they watched the show.

Okay... maybe there was a perfectly ordinary reason for the bouncers.  It was a family pizzeria, but they served alcohol and the animatronics were surely expensive.  They didn't want some drunk hopping up on stage and feeling up Bonnie (or more likely Chica but you never knew) in front of young children, much less breaking one of them.   
      
"C'mon," Jen wheedled.   
      
Michi glanced over the top of her menu and sighed at Jen's crooked finger, the menu angled towards Michi.  She pulled her chair around, abandoned her own menu and took the left half of Jen's.  Jen held the right.  They murmured together like school children and Michi let tradition settle over her shoulders like an old bathrobe.   
      
"We could just get the special."  
      
"It's a plain pizza in the shape of Freddy's head."  
      
"Yeah, but it's a _good_ plain pizza."  
      
"I thought you said you’d never eaten here before."  
      
"They do take-away."  
      
"Ah."  
      
Their waitress, Amber, came with their drinks and left with their order.  Michi started to think this would be okay.  Better than okay- entertaining, even if the lyrics to the songs were obvious parody and covers of famous songs with a few animal jokes thrown in.  She was surprised by the dexterity with which Bonnie strummed his guitar and adjusted his bow-tie.  Freddy more than once doffed his top hat and performed tricks with it, tossing it into the air as it spun, turning so he could catch it behind his back in full view of his adoring audience.  Chica played up the use of her serving platter as her cupcake sat, somehow, on her shoulder. She used the tray to coquettishly hide her face, and fan Bonnie after a particularly long guitar solo.   
      
She sang a duet of _How Much is that Cupcake in the Window_ , with her cupcake- also an animatronic, which squeaked.  She and Freddy traded off, her wearing his top hat and he spinning the cupcake, which squeaked louder in glee, while Bonnie played a rendition of _The Hamster Dance_.

The whole thing was cute.  It was not only cute, it was... impressive, really.  Foxy came out at intervals, singing sea shanties while the other three set up for more complicated numbers, pulled out bits of costume, or simply told jokes back and forth with the pirate.  Michi caught herself laughing- half in rueful expectation, half in honest pleasure at one bit-  
      
"Yarrrrrr," Foxy interrupted a song, violently pushing back his curtains and shaking his hook at Chica.  "That thieving, feathery wench stole my rum!  The rum is _gone_!"  
      
The audience loved it.  Chica slapped a hand to her face.  
      
Freddy took the brim of his hat, tipped his microphone like a cigar and did a passable impression of Groucho Marx, "No she didn't, Foxy.  It's there at the bar."  
      
Bonnie imitated the sound of a rim shot, with accompanying air-drum.  There followed a pantomime skit between Foxy and one of the bartenders, as Foxy demanded a drink and the bartender clutched the bottle to his chest, animatedly shaking his head.  Foxy threatened with his hook, and Freddy cleared his throat into the mic.  
      
"Um.  Foxy?"  
      
Foxy, robotic hand on the bartender's collar and hook raised, looked innocently at the bear.  
      
"We still have a show to do?"  
      
Michi laughed happily, shoulder to shoulder with Jen, who was wiping away tears with her napkin.  Foxy went obligingly back to his cove, bottle of rum displayed comically to the audience as he hid it from Freddy behind his back.  He disappeared behind the curtain.  There followed the sound of loud gulping, a satisfied sigh, and an empty bottle thrown from the cove to be skillfully caught by the bartender.  He caught it, then juggled it with three other bottles.  
      
"Let's have a round of applause for Teddy," Freddy announced, holding a hand towards the man while Bonnie and Chica clapped politely.  The audience cheered, clapped, and the bartender bowed before going back to his duties.  The patrons who had moved safely out of the way during this act re-took their stools, also applauding.  
      
"See?" Jen smiled, nudging Michi's shoulder.  "It's _awesome_."  
      
Michi grinned, shaking her head, and grinned wider as their food arrived.   
          
That's when it happened.  Amber left them with their pizza and a little paper basket of their side-order.  Michi, claiming a wing and biting down, didn't register the gasp from the stage.  The was the snap of a spotlight, and suddenly she, Jen, and the contents of their table were illuminated for the restaurant's viewing pleasure.  
      
"Ooooooh," Bonnie said, leaning towards Freddy and pulling the mic close.  " _Chicken wings_."  
      
Chica had one hand over her beak and was staring right at them.  The cupcake's little eyes were narrowed.  
      
"Now, now, Chica." Freddy hastened to her side, taking the mic back. "I'm sure it's no one that you know."  
      
Themed restaurants.  Fucking _themed restaurants_.

Michi recognized the absurdity of the situation. She felt the blush in her cheeks and was fully aware of the fact that she was in the middle of a restaurant, mid-bite on a chicken wing. Her lips were tingling from the sauce and she really should just take the wing out of her mouth or bite down and start chewing. She should pretend nothing was happening or play along. 

The animatronic chicken was making her feel guilty for ordering chicken wings. She felt the other patrons staring. She _hated_ themed restaurants. She was appalled that this one existed, had lulled her into a false sense of security, and _thank you so much_ , Jen, for asking to come here. Thanks for the help right now- innocently eating pizza and pretending she wouldn't be finger-deep in the basket when the spotlight was off them.

 _Fuck it_ , Michi thought, pulling the basket closer. In for a penny, in for a pound, and Jen could get her own. .... Michi was paying anyway.

She bit down, chewed, swallowed- to Chica's horrified whimpers- and said, meekly but clearly audible. 

"I'm sorry. They're so delicious-"

"She's right, you are."

Michi blinked, glanced at Bonnie, whom she wasn't sure had actually spoken. Chica made no sign that she had heard, but Michi caught Freddy pulling back his foot... as if he had kicked the rabbit animatronic.

"Just," Chica warbled in a tragic voice, "tell me the bones aren’t made of metal! Then- then I'll know for sure."

She was being tsked at by the three year old at the table to her left. Chica was staring expectantly at her and Freddy was waving his free hand in a little circular motion, telling her to get on with it.

Michi stripped the chicken wing to the bone (easily done, it was delicious and tender), then held it up as she chewed. The spotlight was still on... and she probably had sauce on her cheek. Damnit. Freddy leaned as close to the bone as he could without stepping off the stage. Chica did likewise. Bonnie tuned his guitar. Chica and Freddy turned slowly to look at the rabbit who groaned and slumped over to look at the bone as well.

Michi appreciated the fact that this bit was moving along quickly enough that the customers weren't getting bored but she was still more embarrassed than amused. She tried to focus on the fact that Jen was lapping this up, it was hard. She kept waiting for taunts from the audience, snide laughter.

But there was only happy chuckling, a close inspection of the wing bone, and the three animatronics sighing in unison as they determined that the chicken bone was in fact from a flesh and blood chicken.  
      
"B-but what about the others?"  
      
Michi was not going to scarf the rest of the chicken wings here and now.  No.  Absolutely not.  She held up the basket, offering it to them with a smile.  The animatronics blinked, and before they could respond, a tall shape sidled up to her chair.  She knew who it was by Jen's grin before a robotic hand took the basket and Foxy sauntered off with them.  
      
"Don't mind if I do, lass!"

The restaurant loved it.  Michi's cheeks were still burning.  Worse- they _weren't done_.   
      
"Foxy!" Freddy scolded.  Foxy waved his hook over his shoulder and kept walking.  Jen was bent over in her chair, pizza forgotten, laughing so hard she was crying.   
      
"Carnivores," Chica sighed, holding a hand to her forehead and affecting a southern accent, "I _do declare_!"  
      
"Everybody loves chicken wings."  
      
There.  Michi hadn't imagined it that time, but while Bonnie's comment was partly lost in the laughter of the other diners, the slide of robotic fingers over one yellow arm was decidedly... flirtatious.  
      
Michi reached for her alcoholic beverage as Chica grabbed Bonnie's ear and the animatronic rabbit flailed, whimpering in pain as Chica dragged him back to his spot.  The diners only laughed harder.   
      
Freddy came back and, sadly, brought their attention back as well.  
      
"I'm so sorry, Miss-"  
      
There was a waiter standing behind her and Jen.  A waiter with a microphone.  
      
"What's your name?" the waiter prompted, smiling pleasantly.  
      
She did not want to do this.   
      
Jen helped.  
      
"Michi," she said, grinning.  
      
"Well hiya there, Michi," Freddy responded, not missing a beat and seriously, why could they not have done this with the kid at the left hand table?  Oh right.  Because Michi loved chicken wings.  She'd given them an opening.  
      
"We're really sorry for the inconvenience-"  
      
"Not hardly!" Foxy shouted from the other side of the restaurant.

"We _are_ ," Freddy said more forcefully, "and here at Freddy Fazbear's, we always make sure our guests have good food and magical times!  I see you've got some of our pizza there, but since Foxy stole your chicken, well, to apologize, I'd like to invite you to come up to sing a song with us later!"   
      
Bonnie and Chica, entirely apologetic and nodding along with this little speech, perked up at Freddy's suggestion.   
      
"That's a _great_ idea!"  
      
"A Fazberrific idea!"  
      
It was getting worse, and with puns.   
      
"Oh no," Michi demurred, managing a smile and not breathing into the microphone.  Should they not have backed off by now?  Seriously.  "But maybe my friend Jennifer could come up instead, since it's her _birthday_ and all?"  
      
Jackpot.  She felt a little bad about throwing Jen under the bus, but she doubted that the tires were painful.  She might as well have said the magic word.  The Fazbear crew gasped.  Bonnie started the single most _metal_ rendition of _Happy Birthday_ Michi had ever heard and Freddy led the restaurant in singing it.  A few waiters- and how astonishingly quick on the draw they were, really- brought out an over-large cupcake with a single candle on it (it had no eyes, thank goodness.  Michi felt a surge of dread that they were going to start the entire chicken wing debacle all over again), and a plastic tiara.  
      
Then they were finally left alone, to eat.  

Not before Chica admonished Jen that she must eat all of her pizza before having her cupcake, and to share with her good friend Michi.  Jen swore that she would, holding up a hand 'cross her heart and hope to fly, stick pepperoni in her eye'.  
      
Then they were left alone.  Amber brought them replacement basket of chicken wings that Michi almost waved away, and topped off their drinks.  Michi chugged the remains of the first bottle and started on the second.  
      
"I love you~" Jen said sweetly.  
      
"You damn well better," Michi said around a fresh drumstick.   
      
"Don't worry," Jen grinned, adjusting her tiara, "it's more music and less shenanigans at nine."  
      
"Why? What happens at nine?"  
      
"They make sure all the under-age patrons are gone or leaving, shift the tables away from the stage to make room for the dance floor, and this place turns into a night club."  
      
Michi swallowed.  " _Oh.  Great._   A night club where everyone's going to know our names."  
      
"No," Jen teased, "not _everyone_.  Just the people who stick around like we will.  Maybe Foxy'll buy you a drink."  
      
Michi shook her head in disgust.   
      
"A _rum_ ~ and coke."  
      
Michi groaned and then snickered.  Jen started snickering with her and in a moment they were both gone, cackling the way that most people only did when they were alone.  Michi could feel the three year old at the left table, still judging her. He wasn't one of her kids at the day care. It was fine... so long as his family wasn't friends with anyone who was- oh fuck it. She drank more lemonade and cared less. 


	2. The Night Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fazband has a new repertoire.

Michi had finished her second bottle, faintly buzzed and much happier, when Balloon Boy approached the edge of their table. He greeted them with a giggle and a wave before handing Jen folded sheets of paper and tying a helium balloon to a lock of her hair. His sign, Michi noticed, said ‘Balloons!’ What surprised her was that it said ‘Balloons!’ in rainbow colors which shimmered over the letters in a wave pattern while resembling a perfectly ordinary wooden sign.  He passed by the table with the three year old and handed the child the other balloon he'd been holding as the family gathered their belongings to leave.  
      
Jen unfolded the pages, compared them, and passed one to Michi.  It was a waiver.  _Somebody_ had been serious about them participating in songs (brave of them, not knowing what either woman sounded like singing... while potentially drunk). Before doing so, Fazbear's Pizzeria wanted signed permission for the animatronics to touch them, confirmation that they were aware that there was potential for injury, signed assurance that they wouldn’t sue, etcetera, etcetera. The restaurant was clever about giving the animatronics ways to interact with its patrons outside the waiver. Foxy had stolen her chicken wings without actually touching her or snatching the basket forcefully enough to cause harm.  Balloon Boy hadn't touched Jen as he tied the balloon to her hair, only threaded the ribbon beneath a lock and tied a loose bow.  Michi had watched him do it and the articulation of his finger joints really was-  
      
"I don't think I'm gonna," Jen murmured, reading the waiver.  "I don't want to be banned from this place like Cam banned me from Karaoke nights."  
      
"Cameron was a douche," Michi said loyally. "You sing fine."  Jen didn't, actually, and they both knew it.  It was a shame, given Jen's stage presence.  She would have made a really, _really_ charismatic singer... if she could sing. She had to settle for being a wonderful dancer.  "But if you tell them you don't _want_ to sing, maybe you can do back up percussion, shake some maracas."  
      
Abruptly Jen started laughing.  "Oh my god.  They put in that one line from the game-" she pointed on Michi's paper towards the bottom.  "'Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or persons'-"  
      
Michi found it, read it, and dropped the page to the table, laughing into her hand.  She kept laughing as Jen sliced into the gigantic cupcake and left the knife there, sucking pink icing off her thumb.  
      
Michi straightened up.  "Okay!  Did you make your wish?"  Tradition was tradition.  Jen scrunched up her nose, closed her eyes, and eventually nodded.  Michi drew the knife out of the cupcake and set it aside.  
   
They each grabbed a half, tapped them lightly against each other.  
      
"Happy birthday."  
      
"Thanks!"  
      
Michi bit down and tried not to moan.  Chocolate cake.  _Good_ chocolate cake, and the icing was sugary and sticky with just a hint of strawberry flavoring.  Absolutely delicious.  Jen absently handed her a pen, folding her waiver and setting it on the side of the table.  Michi clicked the pen once, twice and glanced at Amber as their waitress approached.   
      
"Can I get you ladies another round?" she grinned mischievously, "Another cupcake?"  
      
Jen groaned in appreciation of the half she was still eating.   
      
"No," Michi said slowly, "but... two coffees and two bottles of water, please?"  
      
Jen made an interrogative noise and Michi grinned.  
      
"Certainly," Amber smiled.  "I'll have that made up for you at one of the side-tables and come back when it's ready."  
      
"Thank you," Michi smiled, signed the waiver, grabbed Jen's, and handed both to the waitress.  
      
"Hell yes," Jen mumbled around a bite of cupcake.  "Gimmie some," and held up her hand for a high-five.  Michi obliged her and reached for a slice of the cold pizza which hadn't been cleared away.  It was still delicious, and she was going to need clubbing fuel.

 

They were seated at a table on the right side of the restaurant. Amber had informed them that the concert would begin at 10pm. Jen advocated occupying the table for as long as possible- definitely through the opening number, after that... as long as they could resist the call of the music. The crowd was getting thicker, as predicted, and if they left the table they'd lose it. Michi perched on the tall seat, sipped her coffee and watched the stage as pre-recorded music began.

"This is the song they play when the restaurant opens every afternoon," Jen muttered.

"Okay." It sounded like a kiddie intro song, which seemed odd. Still cute, but odd. They couldn't, Michi grimaced, leaning an elbow on the table, be going through the same routine as earlier in the evening. She glanced around the stage and no- things were different. The Pirate's Cove enclosure was entirely open, the curtain pulled back, and Foxy wasn't actually there. The Fazband were front and center in spotlights, while the house lights had dimmed. They finished the intro song and smiled sweetly at the crowd before Freddy addressed the club-goers and Bonnie looked abruptly confused. 

"Hey there! Great t' 'eetcha! I'm Freddy Fazbear, and I’d like to welcome each and every one of you to my Pizzeria! This here is Bonnie Bunny, lead guitarist and my very best friend-" Freddy stood in the illumination of three spotlights close together, Bonnie and Chica standing on either side of him at the front of the stage.  Behind them, a stage crew was busily setting up instruments, or so Michi thought.  They were silent, but she had good night vision and she wasn't giving the Fazband her full attention like a good little audience member.  She watched people, wearing head-to-toe black, set up a drum kit, guitar stands, microphone stands and a full toy section including xylophones.  Michi felt her grin getting wider.  Okay.  It was a different routine, and they were getting live music at some point. She liked it already.  
      
Freddy still sounded like a goof, but there was a slight undertone. His voice was a little deeper, better rendered and a little... anticipatory. The crowd responded, cheering. Michi snorted as she made the comparison between the enormous animatronic bear and someone's dad playing cool. Still goofy, still loveable... rather out of his element. That didn't change as Bonnie broke formation, shading his eyes and squinting at the crowd. 

"Waitaminute," he said, guitar hanging over his shoulder.

Freddy changed track mid-sentence, looking at the rabbit, "A- yeah, Bonnie?"

"Time," he said, raising his hands in a 'T' before pointing at the crowd and looking at his friends. "What's wrong with this picture?" 

Chica promptly made a picture frame with her fingers, closing one eye to look through it, and scanned the audience. She caught on, covering her beak with a gasp as Bonnie pushed Freddy's microphone to one side and said- still quite loud enough for the mic to catch it-

"Aren't they a little _old_ for this show?"

Michi sipped her coffee and shared a grin with Jen as the crowd jeered. Bonnie reacted, spreading his hands and looking askance. Good reaction time. Sure, Michi realized that might have been scripted, but the timing was really good... not that she cared, although she still wrote the occasional stage script. She was in the habit of thinking about the breakdown and she had to give props to whomever had written this one. 

"Bonnie!" Chica scolded. "Bite your tongue!"

Michi chuckled as Bonnie did, visibly. Chica sashayed up to Freddy and relieved him of the microphone, to cheers from the patrons. She threw them a wink and a smile.

"You're never too old to be a fan of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, or our band." She leaned in to Freddy, arms crossed, microphone conveniently close to Freddy's face.

"Chica's right, Bonnie. It's a magical place for kids and grownups alike! But you do have a point." Freddy reached upward very deliberately, tugged the brim of his top hat so it tilted forward just a bit. He grinned slowly as he did so. Some of the audience giggled nervously and Michi wondered how many of them wanted to reach for a flashlight right now. "So let's _change it up_."

Chica grinned. So did Bonnie, but there was an edge of gleeful anticipation that made his smile _slightly_ less terrifying.

"Different songs?" Bonnie asked, fingers twitching on his guitar. " _Adult_ songs?" 

Freddy nodded once in response to each question, eyeing the audience the entire time. He flinched and twisted to look at Bonnie as the rabbit cheered an expletive and played a rock chord. Michi's mouth fell open in a grin as other patrons cheered and Jen laughed gleefully beside her. On stage, Chica also stared at Bonnie in shock. He nodded his head at the applause and finally noticed that his friends were staring at him.

"What?"

Freddy gently reclaimed his microphone from Chica and straightened his bowtie. He cleared his throat and glanced at the audience, then at Bonnie.

"While I understand that some situations call for an F-bomb or two-"

"Because you are one," Bonnie muttered.

"There's really no need for _swearing_ ," Freddy admonished.

"Aw c'mon," Bonnie whined. " _They_ don't mind." He tossed a hand at the people crowding the dance floor, then appealed to them. "Do ya'?"

"FUCK NO!" the patrons exclaimed. Michi laughed gleefully. Jen had been one of loudest.

"Hell yeah," Bonnie grinned. Without prompting, the audience yelled it back to him. Bonnie grinned wider, glancing at Freddy and Chica with obvious delight. Then he held up a hand to one long ear. "Can I get a 'rock on'?" The audience obliged him. 

Michi leaned heavily on the table, laughing harder as Bonnie threw up two sets of metal horns, to Freddy's astonishment and Chica's amusement.

"Hell yeah!" he shouted again. The audience echoed him with twice the volume. Bonnie yanked Freddy's arm close enough to scream " _Rock on!_ " into the microphone, and played a guitar riff. The crowd was chanting his name by the time he finished. 

With a benevolent smile, he waved them quiet, then just as quickly changed tack, encouraging them to cheer louder. Freddy watched for a few moments, going from flabbergasted to eventual resignation before pushing Bonnie's hand down. 

"If we're going to rock the fuck out," he said, calmly over the roar, "I guess we'd better get Foxy out here to-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a drum kit. The cheering, which had been dying down, got louder. The animatronics straightened up, looking around curiously as the house lights came back up and the rest of the stage was revealed to them as well as the restaurant patrons. Near the back wall was a drum kit with the restaurant logo on the base. Playing it was Foxy. Bonnie grinned, pointed exuberantly toward him before he adjusted his guitar again and began to play along. Freddy turned to watch Chica abandon him for the keyboard on the right side of the stage. As she also began to play, Freddy stepped on the base of a microphone stand that hadn't been there before, tilting it upright and putting his microphone in it.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce to you, _the Fazband_. Bonnie Bunny on guitar!" The audience cheered for him and for a moment, Foxy and Chica's playing grew softer. "Chica the Chicken on keyboard." 

Bonnie grew softer; Chica kept playing but leaned close to another microphone in a stand, "Let's eat, _drink_ , and _rock out_!" The audience cheered with her.

Freddy turned, thrusting a hand toward the back of the stage. "Foxy the Pirate Fox on drums!"

Foxy put his arms in the air, revealing that he'd substituted his hook for a snare drum stick, and the other was clasped in his hand. He tapped them together before playing a brief, _furious_ solo. 

"As for me, well," Freddy grinned and loomed over the microphone. "You know who I am." He spoke over the cheering, "Let's kick off the show with a little song about... what we do here when the kids go home." The house lights went back down, just a bit, as Bonnie and Foxy ceased playing. Chica began an eerie little melody on the keyboard and Freddy chuckled into the microphone. His signature chuckle, which echoed through the room. 

Michi's jaw dropped. She knew this song... holy shit, she _loved_ this song.  
      
"No fucking way," she whispered.  
      
Jen, staring at her face, waiting for her reaction, giggled and leaned close.  "I _know_ , right?" she whispered. "The owner bought the rights to as many of the _Five Nights’_ songs as he could, so the animatronics could play them.  It's _awesome_."  
      
Okay.  It was official.  Michi no longer cared about the earlier audience participation or the upcoming participation or how they might have to sit near one of the bartenders later if too many guys came up and tried to pick her up with some variation of 'Hey, you're Michi, right?  I saw Foxy steal your wings.'  She didn't care.  She loved this place.  
      
"How did you _know_?" she demanded as Freddy began to sing, and the patrons started cheering.  
      
" _Website_ ," Jen answered, the 'duh' obvious.

Bonnie joined in on the chorus, nearly drowned out by the club-goers singing along.      
          
" _Please let us get in,  
don't lock us away-_ "

"There's a DJ that comes on at 1am," Jen shouted over singing and clapping and the audience stomping their feet.  There was a small mosh pit in one corner of the floor and Michi considered that trying to dance to the faster songs might not be the best idea.  At least guards were hovering nearby.  "Guess who _that_ is?"  
      
Michi almost asked who.  Then she knew the answer.  "Oh my _god_ it's Golden Freddy."  
      
"Yes!" 

 

Michi chugged the rest of her coffee despite the temperature, and went out to dance when _Five Nights at Freddy's_ went right into _Welcome to Freddy's_. Jen found her afterwards and pulled her to the left side of the restaurant. In a corner by the bar was their Wall of Fame. Michi burst out laughing at the picture with place of pride.

"Of course. Of-fucking-course."

"You-tubers eat free," Jen laughed. "Hell, they asked a bunch of them to come for opening night."

"How did I not know any of this?"

"How much are you on Youtube these days?" 

Michi made a non-committal noise, grinning at the picture of Markiplier, dressed in the same purple button-down and hat as the guards, surrounded by animatronic figures. They all looked thrilled, grinning for the camera. She would have thought that Mark would look terrified and the animatronics ravenous- and noticed the smaller set of pictures in the bottom of the frame, the first of which depicted exactly that. The next was of him using the double-finger defense. The last was of the animatronics looking rather confused as Mark disappeared out of frame. She smiled, then stepped closer to the wall. Most of the pictures were rather small, but the definition was acceptable and she wanted to see how they were... set up. She'd been trying not to look at them during dinner, and ogling them during the skit would have offered yet _another_ way for them to make jokes at her expense. She could stare at pictures. That was safe enough. 

The way the animatronics had been crafted- the design showed loyalty to the games, but there were obvious upgrades. There was muscle definition under their coats. They _had_ coats. Chica had feathers, not just smooth yellow coverings for her exoskeleton. Freddy's top hat was velvet. Michi was willing to bet his and Bonnie's bow ties were silk. Chica wore an apron with frilly edges which said ’Let’s Eat!’ in a tiny word bubble that repeated over the fabric with a pattern of multi-colored confetti. Foxy, though he still had a hook and eye-patch, didn't look as run-down as he had in the games. He had fox feet and a paw. He had a tail. He wore a pirate sash to go along with the slightly tattered pants. 

"Woah," she muttered, finally locating a picture where the toys were front and center, rather than the Fazband. Jen leaned against her, also looking at the picture and humming.

"Yep, what do you think?"

If the originals were paying homage to the games, whoever had designed the toys didn't seem to care. That was definitely not plastic. Michi coughed a little and smirked.

"I think whoever came up with Toy Bonnie's design watched _Rise of the Guardians_ and decided to make him look like a blue 'Hugh Jackrabbit'. I'm not saying I _disapprove_ -" 

Jen only laughed. 

"I also think I'm looking forward to 11pm."

"Awesome." Jen glanced over her shoulder and nudged Michi. There was a young man on stage dressed as a guard, nose to nose with Freddy and looking very unhappy about it. Jen grinned and took Michi's hand. "C'mon, they're about to start _Stay Calm_."

 

As time went on, Michi found herself relaxing. They danced, she drank mostly water. Jen had another Pirate Punch and they alternated use of a single bar stool to devour a platter of nachos over the course of three songs. Michi came back from the bathroom and grinned at a cosplayer dressed in a Pink Freddy costume.

"Masculinity shattered?" she asked. She got a thumbs up as the cosplayer passed her and entered the women's bathroom.

She was still grinning as she found Jen- rather Jen's tiara, which was the only thing tall enough to be seen over the heads of the other patrons- on the dance floor.

"Good timing," Jen murmured.

Michi missed Chica's comment, but caught Bonnie's disgruntled look.

"How can you call them _friends_? They _replaced_ us."

He was talking about the toys, that much was obvious. Michi pointed at him, staring. Bonnie's voice was deeper, a little... savage. Jen grinned and waved a hand at the back of her head.

"He turned up his aggression level."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense. What would you consider the Muse of Discord version, level seven?"

"Depends on the song," Jen chortled.

They began to play _Synthetic Agony_. Bonnie sang, arm outstretched as if to catch a time long past, fluttered his fingers. Freddy gave Bonnie a speculative look before reaching to the back of his own head. Michi appreciated the pantomime- it looked as if Freddy reached _under_ something before the slow clicking of a radial dial could be heard. He smirked faintly as it twisted, and his eyes narrowed. Foxy was busy with the drums, Chica just as active with the keyboard, and Michi glanced at the large set of screens on the back wall- currently done up like surveillance videos from the games. During other songs they had shown waveforms or would cycle through close-up shots of the Fazband. Very occasionally she could see the toy versions. The visibility wasn't perfect- she doubted anyone wanted to give away the toys in all their splendor before they actually came out to perform, but they were on screen and Michi thought it was a clever way to show the target of Bonnie's ire without actually bringing Toy Bonnie on stage.

" _Did they think it funny_  
_when they built that plastic bunny?_  
_Did they think it could replace me,_  
_Did they think they could erase me- did they?_ " 

The look he threw Freddy then, apprehensive, _vulnerable_ , even as dark as they were taking the theme, made Michi's heart clench. Holy _shit_ they were expressive. She knew that, but each time one of the animatronics did something she wasn't expecting... during the instrumental break, Freddy leaned over Bonnie, gripping his shoulder in grim sympathy until Bonnie violently shrugged him off to sing the chorus, and Jen jostled her a little. Okay... she'd been staring. Michi shook it off, began to move a little to the music and mouth the words. There were couples dancing here and there- for a certain definition of dancing. Honestly, this was more of a 'slow grind' song and some of the couples were doing so- with enthusiasm. At some point she and Jen had attracted a small group of singles, also singing along. 

She would have done this song a little differently... but if, for the story, they wanted to establish the Bonnies at two different personalities and skirt around the whole 'you took my central processor' issue, this was a good way to do it. Michi wasn't sure they cared. She'd missed bits and pieces of the back-and-forth. Michi got distracted once again as Toy Bonnie's silhouette came up on screen, providing the echo as Bonnie sang-

" _Out there, I saw some fame.  
And now I know just who to blame,_ " 

"Oh," she said, startled, "oh no," she grinned in horrified glee as Bonnie approached the screens, very deliberately raising the microphone stand. The shadow of Toy Bonnie sang in a sweet voice as his predecessor raised the mic stand over his head and swung-

" _Zero toys and just one you_ -"

The screen 'shattered'. Michi squeaked, then laughed with Jen at her reaction. Clever. Some of the screens went to static, others showed a pattern of spider webbed cracks as Bonnie pretended to destroy them and shards of glass rained down from somewhere. The rest of the animatronics didn't seem bothered, other than a wince from Foxy as the first screen went. Chica might have grimaced a little, but Freddy was only standing there, smirking.

"Look," Jen murmured, "look at his reflection."

He was standing close enough to the cracked screens and _just_ barely visible was an image of withered Bonnie. Really. Damn. Clever. Bonnie let the mic stand fall, turning to face the audience as he repeated the chorus, then looked speculatively at Freddy.

" _All grudges left forgotten..._ "

Michi had always enjoyed Muse's version of the characters. They seemed more like artificial intelligence given demented purpose and desire for the spotlight more than they were the trapped spirits of children looking for revenge. Technically, Michi didn’t think the spirits would have formed grudges against the toys. When the children been killed, the toys had been the ‘current’ Fazband and the other suits were merely parts. Muse had blended the history of the murdered children with the motivations of the animatronics together and come up with something compelling. It wasn't her favorite iteration of the characters but it was a hell of a lot of fun. They had teeth and claws and the insanity to use them with delight, and she grinned as Freddy reared back like a mad scientist-

" _From having a, good, tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime-_ "

" _Synthetic agony,_ " Bonnie sang, smirking, clutching the microphone in his hand and pulling the other through his coat, displacing the fur before putting that hand- fingers splayed, over his forehead and flexing- Michi tensed, wondering if he was about to tear his head off... no. He didn't, and she thanked god, because it would have been a bit much. Impressive, but... she wasn't comfortable with mutilation, theatrical or otherwise. 

She wondered if they were planning to perform _Die in a Fire_ , and kind of hoped not. Or if they did, that they would at least avoid use of axes or other implements of destruction. At the end of the song, the audience cheered their appreciation, but Bonnie remained kneeling, breathing heavily, just audible via the microphone at his knee.

"I am _no one's_ spare parts."

Michi raised her eyebrows, looked at Jen. Jen grinned and shook her head, mouthing 'all part of the show' and nodding at the stage. Chica picked her way delicately across the glass as Freddy readjusted his dial. Chica set a hand on Bonnie's shoulder, stroked his back comfortingly before helping him up.

"I don't _care_ ," he said to Freddy, "about level playing fields or-"

"Sweetie," Chica interrupted, "can I adjust your aggro level?"

"Certainly, darling," Bonnie said, mid-rant, and kept talking as he turned and pointed at Freddy, angling the back of his head away from the audience as Chica mimed fiddling with it, "or that-" his voice went higher, sweeter, "he has a nice voice, because _my_ guitar is _bigger_."

The audience loved it. Bonnie blinked, bent his arm automatically as Chica wrapped her hands around it. Freddy coughed into a fist and Foxy slowly lifted his eye patch, all the better to peer at the potential train wreck. Bonnie looked at the audience, curled his pointing finger inward, glanced at Chica and then back to Freddy.

"Um... what did I just say?"

"That Bon's guitar isn't as big as yours," Freddy deadpanned. 

"It _isn't_ ," Bonnie protested.

Michi noticed the house lights getting dimmer. Foxy rose and extracted himself from his drum kit, shaking his head and tightening the drum stick attached to his arm. 

"I'm takin' five, mates."

Freddy nodded to him. Bonnie's ears curled and if it had been possible, Michi suspected he would have been blushing. 

"Yes," Chica agreed, rubbing a hand down his arm, "it _is_ bigger." She rested her chin on his shoulder, smirked, "You handle it better, too."

Michi laughed, was thankful she wasn't the only one, and laughed harder as Freddy took off his hat, fanned himself with it, and pretended that the other animatronics weren't flirting with each other in the middle of the show. Bonnie and Chica seemed just as content to ignore him as the house lights got even dimmer and Bonnie smirked, turning them to exit stage right. 

"Let me give you a demonstration..."

Freddy rolled his eyes to the heavens, shaking his head and putting his top hat back on. By that point the house lights were entirely down and three spotlights were on him alone. Michi caught the barest suggestion of silhouettes moving in the dark... and it could have been the Toys, but there was fake glass from the last number and they'd want it out of the way before they started up again. She mentally applauded the transition. Freddy moved closer to the front of the stage. There was another mic stand waiting for him and he settled his microphone in it. Then he clapped his hands once and smiled.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and kids above the legal drinking age. You're a wonderful crowd, and we're pleased as _punch_ to rock out with you. Tonight is our very first _Survive the Night_ concert and well, we can't have all the fun. I'm gonna pass the spotlight over to our friends-" he paused to let the audience scream its approval, and grinned. "It's eleven pm, and at eleven pm-"

" _The Toys come out to play!_ "

Michi choked, cleared her throat and grinned. First concert of this type but the audience knew the call-backs? She had to ask Jen how long the place had been open. Right now, Freddy was praising the audience for its prompt response and the spotlights went out. Michi smirked, waited for _Les Toreadors_ to come on. Instead a spotlight revealed Balloon Boy standing near the back of the stage beside a very distinctive box. He mimed spitting into his hands, rubbed them together before grabbing the crank and heaving his entire body in order to get it to turn. Once done winding it, he stood in front of the box, swinging his arms from side to side as it began to play.

It was playing the intro to _Back Again_.

Balloon Boy listened happily until the tone went darker. He skipped off, still smiling. The spotlight followed him into the toy section by Foxy's drum set. Balloon Boy continued off-stage, but the spotlight remained, because Mangle was standing there. Foxy was back at the drum kit. Another spotlight came up as the phrase repeated, revealing Bonnie, then Chica and Freddy in succession. The next was met with cheering. 

Toy Freddy stood at the back of the stage, flanked by Toy Bonnie and Toy Chica, all of them grinning aggressively and striding to the beat, taking their places center-stage. They just _stood_ while the introduction continued, posing with rock-star confidence and surveying the audience. Yes, we’re awesome. You love us. We already own you. Our performance is just a bonus.

She’d been right about Toy Bonnie. Sleeker, a little fluffier and he really did look like a younger, _bluer_ E. Aster Bunnymund from _Rise of the Guardians_. Toy Freddy was similarly slimmer, shorter and fluffier than Freddy. Toy Chica... Michi hadn’t been able to tell from the pictures but-

“ _Better wind that box or you’ll be surprised-_ ”

“Wings,” Michi blurted. Jen just smiled at her. Toy Bonnie and Chica broke out of the little dance-step they’d been doing with Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie to grab the guitar Bonnie threw him, and Toy Chica to unfurl wings. They seemed just as wide as her arm-span would have been, but they _weren’t arms_. She danced to the music, extending them, curving them gracefully and whirling so they trailed like decorative sleeves. Jen grabbed her hand and tugged.

“C’mon- this is our best opportunity to get seats.”

Michi could see why. Everyone was absorbed by the spectacle of it, singing along with Toy Freddy, staring open-mouthed at the others. Mangle was tame by comparison, playing a xylophone toward the back of the stage... with two extra arms and an extra head. Michi let Jen pull her backward, still staring. 

“ _-lots of us and one of you._ "

There were dance routines during the instrumental portions of Back Again and It's Me which involved as many as eight of the animatronics at a time. They moved with seamless precision, more smoothly than machines, as beautifully as humans did after weeks of rehearsal. They weren't giving each other a lot of room to maneuver but they didn't need it. The dancing was swift, aggressive, but perfectly synchronized. Michi moaned... a bit more loudly than perhaps she should have. 

"Jen," she said, gripping her friend's knee. "Who is their choreographer?" 

She grinned at Michi, sipped her water. "Why?" 

Michi's fingers tightened and Jen flinched, laughing and swatting her away. "Because I need to hug them and possibly lick them before doing other things that aren't fit for public consumption." 

Jen's reply was interrupted by a bottle falling, loudly, onto the bar. Michi froze, plastered a wide grin on her face as she turned to look at the bartender. 

"Hi!" 

Oh god who else had heard that? Jen was giggling into her shoulder. Another handful of patrons were eyeing her. 

"What?" Michi asked the bartender, who continued to look at her nonplussed, as if he hadn't just fumbled a beer. Oh well. At least it hadn't been open. "Skill like that deserves to be rewarded." 

The bartender shrugged. "I sing." 

Michi noticed his lips twitching. He was cute. His speaking voice was pleasant, so maybe the singing claim was truth... and banter felt like such a good idea right now. ... She wasn't drunk. At least, she didn't think she was. 

"Oh, you do?" Michi smiled, leaning up onto the bar a little. "Would you care to give us a demonstration?" 

He smiled with just a hint of teasing, gathering bottles of beer for an order and uncapping them all with a wink. "All in good time." He walked off to deliver them. Jen was still laughing. Michi wondered how drunk _she_ was. 

"Do we need some more food?" Michi asked. Jen cackled, hanging on to her arm. Michi had missed a joke somewhere, but she didn't know _where_. She would have pestered Jen about it, but the song had ended and Toy Freddy was calling for another round of applause for the Fazband and making introductions. "I'm serious," Michi said quietly as Jen calmed and hugged her. 

"No," she grinned, "I'm fine. I'm just happy." 

"You're sure you're not too drunk to do the participation thing?" 

"I am totally sure, which is a good thing, because they're probably going to call me back in a little while." 

How did she know that, exactly? Michi thought she understood the story line at this point. The animatronics were keeping it vague. The murders were being acknowledged if not expressly discussed, the toys were in residence and the animatronics displayed distrust toward night guards as a group if they weren't holding actual grudges. All the participants so far had been guards. Mike was the same singer, over and over again, but the two men playing guards during _It's Me_ hadn't shown up earlier, or since. 

"That's Blue Bonnie on bass, but we call him Bon," Toy-Freddy-but-call-me-Fred explained to the audience. Michi smirked. So they were going with traditional fandom names for the toys, huh? Well, she had no complaints. No complaints but a little gleeful horror as Blue Bonnie leaned his mic closer and smiled seductively at the audience. 

"No, actually," he murmured, "they call me Bonbon. Because I'm... so edible." He trailed the fingers of his free hand down his abdomen... and his guitar was covering his crotch but- Michi covered her eyes and tried not to think about it, laughing, hearing Jen laugh as well and wolf-whistles coming from the audience. 

"Aw yeah." 

Michi laughed harder. He sounded like every frat bro actor who'd ever passed through Starlake and she found him more entertaining for the comparison. 

"You wanna pet me," the animatronic was smirking, and threw Fred a lazy smile. "They wanna pet me." 

Fred looked scandalized. Toy Chica sighed loudly, lifting a wing to her forehead- and Michi was sure the continued banter was fascinating but she wasn't paying attention. Half the reason she wanted to hug the choreographer was all _her_. Toy Chica didn't have hands. She didn't play any instruments but the way she danced and spread her wings for display as she moved- it was beautiful and it was brilliant. She and Toy Bonnie bickered like siblings. Fred continued to look stunned and faintly horrified until Toy Chica ended it by introducing herself. 

"Everyone calls me Chi. As in Tai Chi. Which I know," She slanted a look at Toy Bonnie, whom she did _not_ call Bonbon, "and will use to beat _down_ your edibility." 

"Last but not least, Mangle on percussion," Fred called desperately, lifting a hand to indicate the fourth member of their group, who was smirking with both mouths, opened the one on its fox head and let out an intelligible stream of static and electronic interference followed by a kissy noise. 

"Far be it for me to slow things down. Foxy?" 

Michi grinned as the pirate fox started up a familiar song. The rest of the band followed just a few beats before Fred slapped his microphone into the stand and sang, defiantly, 

" _We're back, revamped. The madness never ends.  
We're not, alone._ " 

He threw his arms to the side, his gesture encompassing the Fazband as Chi and Bon sang backup. 

" _This time we've brought some friends.  
No doors, no hope, but you keep coming back-_ " 

Bon smirked at the crowd, tilting his head a little. "But if this is what you want-" 

" _Then you can be just like us._ " 

Fred and Chi continued singing, and Bon backed up, straightening his guitar and starting to play. 

"Yanno," Jen said loudly, "that joke from earlier is actually true." 

"Which one?" 

"About Bonnie handling his guitar better. He does, but Bon's got a better voice, and that's my cue." 

Michi blinked, looked away from the stage long enough to notice Balloon Boy a few feet away, waving frantically. 

"Gotta dash, don't freak out. Watch her!" 

Michi blinked again as Jen hopped from her stool, water in one hand, and sprinted after Balloon Boy. She vaguely registered that the last had been directed at the bartender and turned to look at him. He was grinding fresh mint into the bottom of a glass, gave Michi a quick grin as he mixed ingredients, served the mojito to a woman who took it and walked away from the bar. Don't freak out. She gave the bartender a sweet smile as he turned back to her, because her stern expression never worked on anyone over the age of ten, but when she smiled, people thought she was _up to_ something. 

"Why does she think I need watching," she glanced at his name tag, "Teddy?" Teddy, and he was _that_ Teddy, who'd performed the earlier skit with Foxy, shrugged. 

"Because she's probably playing the guard in _Survive the Night_ and the animatronics are pretty convincing?" 

Well. Shit. Okay, she could see that. Sure, the performances were good, the animatronics were convincing. Michi hadn't been able to decide whether the crazed spirits of murdered children freaked her out more than demented artificial intelligence. Both were creepy in their own ways and oh look, both were up on stage; or rather, their very very impressively programmed representations. Michi didn't want to embarrass anyone by rushing the stage or screaming in terror as Jen got menaced by the animatronics. 

"Can I get a-" 

Teddy slapped a bottle of lemonade on the counter and popped the cap. "Can I just say your choice of drink is really fitting for the situation?" 

" _Thank_ you," Michi said fervently. She'd been waiting hours for someone to make that joke. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hold [Markiplier](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_YxT-KID8kRbqZo7MyscQ) responsible for my knowledge of the games, and I'm very, very grateful. 
> 
> You're probably already familiar with them, but these songs are fabulous;
> 
> [Five Nights at Freddy's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l18A5BOTlzE) by The Living Tombstone  
> [Welcome to Freddy's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwf1Hozcpw4) by Madame Macabre  
> [Stay Calm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2SEfqgxug4) by Griffinilla  
> [Open Up, the Bonnie version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfmvKw6jHXo) by Muse of Discord  
> [Synthetic Agony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMA_DhVhfLs) by Muse of Discord  
> [Back Again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiI9IYH3hjQ) by Groundbreaking  
> [It's Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ycaIXQiNIg) by TryHardNinja  
> [Mangled](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJTmfIF4-Lw) by NateWantsToBattle  
> [Survive the Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbjAcmNWX-Y) by MandoPony


	3. Survive the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Audience participation and minor freak-outs.

"We never _actually_ ate anybody," Chi said. She pressed a wing to her chest to show her sincerity... indirectly calling attention her white t-back shirt (which did not actually say 'Let's eat!') and subsequently Chica's apron (which did). 

"Except that one time," Bon muttered.

Michi snickered at the horrified look Fred shot him. The Fazband didn't interject much, allowing the toys to run this portion of the show. They were reacting... but if Michi wasn't mistaken they looked more _fond_ than negating, as Chi was, and as Michi would have expected them to be if they were trying to convince Bon to shut up. 

Mangle's innocent look, both of them, was more pronounced, and the surprise when it noticed the others looking at it, very deliberate. Michi grinned over the mouth of her bottle and waited. The skull-head tilted downward in contrition and spoke with a masculine voice, still distorted.

" _I only chewed in self-defense. In my defense, I must confess_ ," the fox-head smiled, sinister, delighted, and finished the sentence, " _he was delicious_."

Michi cackled as they continued the banter into _The Mangle_. She turned to Teddy.

"Fred's the younger one, isn't he?"

Teddy fumbled the lemon wedge he'd been sliding onto the rim of a glass and muttered a curse before he cut another. Then he smiled at her.

"What?"

"That's the way the script was written, right?" Michi said, waving a hand at the stage. "He's not as practiced at this; gets easily flustered." She could tell by the way the other toys were jumping in, filling in the silences. Oh, they were clever about it, and the innocent uncertainty in Fred's demeanor was adorable. Still, his reactions were enjoyable more because they were honest than because they were funny. She didn't wait for Teddy's response. Michi doubted he would answer if he did know. Couldn't give the impression that the show wasn't going exactly as planned, after all. "So should I expect Springtrap to show up later, or what?"

"Who?" Teddy asked. Michi looked at him in surprise, then bit down on a comment she knew would sound judgmental. There was no reason for her to think he'd played the games, simply because he worked here. 

"The antagonist from the third game," she said instead. "Goldish-colored mummy bunny."

Teddy chuckled at her description, walked away to deliver a drink, and came back. "Did people write songs about him?"

"Oh yeah."

"I haven't seen a golden rabbit animatronic, but as far as I know they have all the songs and more than six hours to fill."

Michi hummed and turned back to the stage... and was sorry she'd turned away. Mangle was singing, both the feminine and masculine voices. It was clinging to wires that dangled from the ceiling with two prehensile feet and two hands. The third held a microphone and the fourth gestured for emphasis on the lyrics.

 _“-swing onto_  
_whoever’s watching us on the night_  
_so I can take a bite out of you_ ,”

Chi was dancing, the rest playing instruments. Chica and Foxy had a lot to do, Michi mused, but they were creative about fleshing out the songs. She didn't remember any horn parts for these songs but there was Freddy in the back, with a trumpet... which meant they'd built at least one animatronic who could simulate breathing, and she found that fucking _impressive_. 

The song ended with Mangle still dangling from the wires, upside down, and Fred walking over to it with a strained grin on his face.

"Wasn't that wonderful, everyone?" he asked the audience, prompting another round of cheering. Then he tipped the microphone down but Mangle was still holding one, so his, " _Stop helping_ ," was clearly audible. 

Mangle only smiled wider, climbed down from the wires directly onto Fred and proceeded to cuddle him with all its limbs, kissing him on the cheek with its vulpine lips and nuzzling him with its skull head. He accepted it with ill grace, and Bon jumped in.

"It's okay," he said, taking off his guitar and setting it in a stand beside Bonnie, who raised an eye-ridge at him as he approached center-stage and Chi wandered up as well. "We can fix this. That was all in the past, and now we're totally about eating new peo- _meeting_ new people." He grinned, talking quickly over the 'slip', hopping a bit from foot to foot in enthusiasm. "We're all _here_ , having _fun_ , ready to show how serious we are about making amends."

Chica had begun playing by that point. Michi covered her mouth with one hand, trying not to shriek in glee. Most of the crowd wasn't as circumspect as Mangle planted its feet on the stage, the toys drew together and Bon sang, 

_"Let's try to make it right,  
don't wanna start a fight-"_

He waved his hand at the others, who seemed to flinch and quickly joined in, expressions snapping from confused to contrite.

" _and we're so sorry if we gave you all a little fight-_ "

Michi let out a squeak when Jen wandered onstage during the chorus repetition, dressed in guard purple and without a hat. There was something soft and floppy in her hands which she quickly donned when she 'noticed' the toys. 

"Oh no." Michi laughed out loud, both hands over her mouth. Jen was wearing a Freddy mask with lighter fur than either Freddy on stage, though it wasn't golden either. Michi admired the construction. The mask covered enough to disguise Jen's face but the audience could still see her nervous smile, her eyes moving. The mask had been flat and rubbery going on but it held its shape, a more rounded head than Jen's was, and solid ears. 

Jen's apprehension was obvious in the quick turn of her head as well as her body movement as Bon bounded over to her, grabbing her hand and shaking vigorously as he continued to sing. He tucked Jen's hand into his elbow and walked her upstage past Fred and Mangle, both of whom looked suspicious. Chi, less skeptical, danced past them and sang the next part off-hand.

_"There's no escape but then, who would want to leave?  
It's a fantastical paradise, and it's not make-believe!"_

" _I'm so glad to have another member of the band_ -" Bon gushed, spinning Jen to face him and smiling, then leaning back so both their arms were fully extended- making her hands and wrists more visible.

_"But what is that I spy,  
with my robotic eye?"_

"Oh," someone sitting close to Michi chortled, "she's fucked. She's fucked. Run away, honey."

Fred noticed it first, but Bon chimed in, looking shocked and betrayed.

"I think I see a bit of flesh inside the new guy-"

Jen pulled away when Bon released her hand. She danced backward a few steps, out of their line of sight and then to the left- where Chi and Mangle promptly caught her and pulled her into a circle-dance. Meanwhile Bon and Fred were still singing to one another, conspiratorially.

" _Maybe she isn't everything that she seems,  
time to investigate what's underneath the seams..."_

They both smiled wide and happy, _fake_ , as they turned and sang the chorus. Chi and Mangle took notice, joined the second chorus as they pulled a clearly reluctant Jen towards center-stage. They were very sweet. They sounded so very sweet, and that was the problem, wasn't it, Michi thought. They were sweet. They were only children, until you made them angry. Even as they killed, they were only children, innocent, giving no thought to consequence or just how irreversible some actions could be. Oh sure. The games sounded hilarious, even adorable if extremely macabre, on paper, but the closer you looked at the 'beloved animatronic figures coming to kill you', the more horrific the concept was.

Michi had always kind of enjoyed the cheerful malice in the songs and in the stories. They were just children... playing a game. If a guard lost, or if the animatronics found out he'd been lying to them, well, that was too bad, now wasn't it? 

Unless you were the guard...

"Michi?" 

She flinched at the hand on her shoulder, turned to look at Teddy. He touched her very lightly, but his voice was firm as he held her gaze. 

"Tell me you're okay."

"Or _what_?" she said, a bit too loudly, "Jeremy throws me out the front door?" Because yes, she had noticed him standing nearby, eyeing her. 

"Tell me about the stage direction," Teddy said, leaning over the bar as Michi turned back to the stage, because she couldn't not watch what was going on. "Be objective about it," he said.

So she was objective about it, muttering comments and it probably didn't sound like she was being complimentary but she found the by-play between the toys very clever. Bon was the enamored young thing and the others were trying to protect him from getting hurt. Fred and Chi walking Jen away from Bon was almost a shovel-talk and the writer's decision to have Mangle's song right before _Survive the Night_ upped the stakes. They didn't trust the guards, and if you hurt one of them in some way, they would make you pay for it. 

They'd kept giving Chi and Chica the sweeter, motherly parts, and they were a different kind of terrifying for it. 

" _It's not that we don't trust you, we do!_ " Chi sang, cuddling her face near Jen's, " _We love you too! It's just that here at Freddy's,_ " she chuckled, and her smile turned sinister, " _we have a few rules_." 

Michi liked how they had been arranged. Fred and Mangle were looming in front of Jen, Bon standing behind them with obvious exasperation on his face. Chi was at her side, the only one holding Jen with a wing around her waist. Despite that, she clearly wasn't safe, and wasn't going to escape. Even the seemingly weakest of the animatronics was a threat. Or maybe Michi was wrong about that. She kept forgetting about Balloon Boy. Everyone forgot about Balloon Boy. Michi had long suspected that was why he announced himself in the second game. Every giggle and greeting was 'Hi, I'm here to make your life hell!'

Someone sat down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and put a hand in hers. Michi gripped it, still commentating, because Fred looked a little too ready to make good on the threats he was singing, Mangle was enthusiastic about it and Chi wasn't singing with them but her smile was too pleased to be comforting. 

" _And if you break them, we will have to break you like you broke our hearts,  
we'll be forced to rewire you, and repair your damaged parts-_ "

Bon was shaking his head in irritation, but when he stole Jen away from Chi's wing it was not a rescue. The grateful slump of Jen's shoulders showed that she thought it was. She was quickly disabused of that notion, gripped by the shoulder and pulled forcefully against Bon's chest.

" _-sometimes to do some good you've got to be the bad guy-_ "

He shoved her into the circle they made, Fred caught her but didn't steady her- and what followed might have been a more subtle version of the old bully standby, surround your victim and shove them about, keeping them off balance. Would have been, but Jen steadied herself after Fred shoved her into Mangle and looked nervously at them. It surprised Michi that they put Bon with his back to the audience, but the rest of the toys were singing loudly enough to get the point across and Jen was the focus at the moment. The toys went back to smiles, reassurance, enthusiasm, and Michi bit the inside of her cheek as Mangle raised two of its hands and generated a visible electric current between them to emphasize the 'electrifying soiree'. Chi dusted a wing over Jen's shoulders.

" _Formal attire is required for you to take part,  
you've got some skin that needs removing before we start-_ "

Michi covered her mouth with her empty hand, gritting her teeth. She expected it, as everyone expected it, just before it happened. Mangle's hands sparked as they moved out of sight behind Jen's back, and Jen convulsed as she was tazed. Michi was not going to hyperventilate, damnit. She was not. Because Jen was not actually unconscious in Fred's arms, she had simply fallen into them and was keeping still. 

Bon gently pulled off the mask and all the toys reacted with shock or grim acceptance. Fred carried Jen behind an illuminated screen which showed the silhouette of an examination table and Jen, lying on it, as Fred moved away. The next repetition of the chorus was subdued, Bon looking sadly at the mask in his hand. Chi was petting him for comfort and Mangle offered both sympathy and an angry glare at the screen.

" _Let's try to make it right,  
don't wanna start a fight,_ "

Michi tittered nervously as Freddy and Bonnie approached the screen. They were both wearing head mirrors and Freddy carried an old fashioned black doctor's bag. Bonnie grinned at the audience, hefting a power-drill. They both disappeared behind the screen and Michi was actually not sure if she could keep watching. She wanted to. She _needed_ to, because she knew this was a show. She knew it wasn't real, and when Jen came back down, Michi wanted to tell her that she'd seen the whole thing. 

" _You'll be so happy just as long as you survive the night-_ "

The toys turned slowly to look at the screen. Freddy's chuckle rose in the ensuing silence. The toys turned back to face the audience, their expressions suddenly amused, malicious, and Bon tossed the mask to one side of the stage.

" _Let's try to make it right,  
don't wanna start a fight,_ "

They were moving to the music, synchronized, aggressive, and Michi wanted to appreciate the shift in tone and the visual representation as Bon and Chi started to look as entertained by the situation as Mangle already did.

But she was having visions of Jen's mutilated body. Mangle was stalking off to help with Jen's transformation and Chi had produced a nurse's hat and placed it on her head, leaving Bon to carry the solo as the rest of the singing came from behind the screen. When the whine of the drill climbed for a moment over the music, Michi ripped her hand out of the one she was holding and turned to face the bar. She pressed her hands over her eyes, the heels of her palms digging into her cheekbones, and took a deep breath, then another. 

Bon ended the song, his voice sweetly earnest.

"I'm _sure_ you'll survive! Just don't break the rules, and play nice, and I'm sure that we'll _all_ get along. We'll be the best of friends... _forever_."

The music kept going and she uncovered her eyes. Michi blinked at Teddy, shifted to look over her shoulder- because she'd assumed _he_ was the one holding her hand. Apparently not. She stared at Jeremy in surprise for a moment.

"Hi. Ah... can I have some more of that?" she asked, pointing to his hand. He stared at her, wordlessly offered it; Michi took his hand again, squeezing, trying not to listen to the power tool noises and what sounded very convincingly like crunching bone.

"This is why I never watched live surgery on television," she told the men. "I chickened out of Bio One. Don't even get me started. I couldn't handle cutting open a worm, much less a frog."

"If it makes you feel any better, I saw three people run for the bathroom," Teddy said.

"Yes," Michi said. "But how much had they had to drink?" She flinched at the brief ratcheting of a jackhammer and spoke louder. "Management might want to consider a disclaimer at the start of the show."

"They have one on the website," Jeremy said, "and on the tickets."

"What tickets?" Michi yelped. She took in Jeremy's furrowed brow and caught what looked like a head-shake from Teddy's direction. She looked at one man, then the other. " _Am_ I about to be tossed out the door?" she demanded.

"Don't worry. I only toss when people don't leave voluntarily."

"Seriously." Michi glared. Predictably, it didn't seem to phase Teddy. "What tickets?"

"The concert?" Jeremy said, waving his empty hand at the stage. Michi glanced at it for a moment and saw Bon looking at Foxy, who winced as he leaned away from the screen.

"So?" Bon asked breathlessly. "How did she turn out?" 

"Ah, well..." Foxy gave Bon a long look, waving his drumstick from side to side. "The show must go on." He ignored Bon's horrified expression, patting him on the shoulder and shoving him toward Bonnie. "Let's hop to, mateys!" He zipped back to his drum kit, leaned close to the microphone hanging over it and sang the introduction. Huh. Michi had always kind of thought the guitar intro to _The Show Must Go On_ sounded kind of pirate-y.

The men were whispering furiously to one another. Jeremy had released her hand. Michi tried to make out their conversation as Fred began to sing, but the most she got was Jeremy saying that he'd never agreed to a damn thing. Teddy called her name.

"Look, you're good to go. Jen's in on a promotional birthday thing and she asked Rick if she could use his employee 'plus one' on you. It's fine."

Jeremy got up without a word, walked away. Michi watched him until he disappeared around the crowd of dancers, then looked at Teddy.

"Who's Rick?" 

"He plays Mike Schmidt." Teddy paused, and smiled slowly. "He's also the choreographer."

Michi stared at him for a moment. She could feel her cheeks growing hot. 

"Oh. Well. That... explains a few things."

Teddy grinned and reached for a bottle of lager in response to a patron three stools down.

"So how long has Jen been a regular?"

"Little over a month." Then he realized his error, sighed and looked at her. Michi stood up, leaned her stomach against the edge of the bar, put a hand on Teddy's right cheek and kissed the left. 

"Thank you," she said. The funny thing was, she meant it. She smiled sweetly at Teddy to give him something to think about, but she meant it. As she walked away from the bar, she was more aggravated that Jen was keeping secrets from her than she was terrified that Jen had been dismembered by an animatronic rock band.

At least, until she noticed Freddy on stage, unrolling blueprints. He was flanked by Mangle and Chi, the latter of whom was singing.

" _We removed her squishy casing, to keep her circuits safe and sound,  
and ended up replacing it with scraps that we had found._ "

Jen was on stage again, dancing with Bon... for a certain definition of the word. The guard costume had been replaced by a bodysuit that was part camel-colored fur and part visible metal joints, and if Michi hadn't seen Jen in Pointe shoes so many times, the robotic leg and its lack of foot would have frightened her. As it was, the other leg was longer to compensate and hide the fact that Jen's foot was at full extension as she danced. Her movements were sharp, they stuttered and she jerked like a broken doll with Bon bracing her. Her eyes were wide, vacant, and her smile pulled a little at the edges. Makeup. Very, very good makeup. It was macabre and disturbing and Michi noticed more than one of the bar patrons staring open-mouthed in dazed fascination, if not outright horror.

It definitely took a certain type of crowd to appreciate the theme they were working. 

Get over it, Michi told herself. It was Jen. Jen kept secrets. She loved surprises. She couldn't help but give Michi surprises even though Michi hated them. She couldn't help but overstep boundaries, and meddle, and meet her quota of being a pain in Michi's ass at least once every month. Michi wandered closer to the wall where she could lean against something, stay out of the foot traffic, and watch the performance.

She could even start to appreciate it again, grinning as the other three toys clustered together to sing. Bon was still dancing with Jen, whose movements became slower and slower-

" _We just don't know what went wrong, we tried to get along,_  
_but our new robot friend's power faded_ ,  
_we did our best to fix our guest_ ,  
_we hated to see her so distressed_ ,"

Jen finally stuttered to a stop. She began to fall but Bon ducked, getting a shoulder under her stomach and bouncing off stage. Jen's limp hand seemed to wave goodbye as the toys did wave,

" _We said farewell_ ," Fred sang, " _and had her ter-mi-nat-ted-_ "

Michi shivered and crossed her arms over her chest as Bon came back from the wings without Jen, dusting off his hands. Bonnie was in the midst of a truly epic guitar solo, and Michi made an effort to stop thinking about the grin he'd worn as he held up the drill.

"You okay?"

"Worry about _her_ ," Michi snorted. "If they didn't actually take her apart, _I'm_ gonna."

Jeremy snorted, leaned against the wall with her and paid more attention to the concert-goers than the concert. 

"You together?"

Michi considered saying it wasn't his business and why was he asking? She wondered briefly if Jeremy had sat next to her because Teddy had prompted him to do so or... it didn't matter. He'd still offered her support, and she appreciated that. He hadn't actually given her a reason to think he was an asshole. There was no need to be rude... yet.

"If you'd like me to get a drink with you," Michi teased, "you could just ask." She smiled. "But to answer your question, no. Tried it, realized it didn't work, stopped sleeping together." She flipped a hand in the direction of the stage. "She kept pulling stunts like this."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this is on level with the time she threw me a surprise party when I turned nineteen. I was lying in bed with menstrual cramps," she smirked inwardly at Jeremy's abrupt 'tmi face', "wearing pajamas and a heating pad over my stomach when she barged in with ten of our college friends, more than half of whom were male. It was the most uncomfortable birthday party of my life, all because she said she'd come over with some cake and ice cream and I said 'fine'. So I love her, she means well, but every now and then she _really_ pisses me off."

"You'd think she'd learn," he observed.

"She knows I'll let her get away with it today because it's her birthday," Michi scoffed.

"Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?" 

Michi grinned as his tone never changed and continued in the same vein. "Give me your number."

He did, written on the back of one of the pizzeria business cards. "You wanna wait in the back hall for her?" Michi nodded, followed Jeremy to the employees only double-door and ducked inside. 

She didn't have to wait long. Jen danced, _literally_ danced, down the hall, grinning from ear to ear, tiara firmly back on her head and all limbs in place.

"You were disturbingly awesome," Michi congratulated her, opening her arms for a hug. "Also awesomely disturbing." Jen hugged her, giggling, and steered them both back into the main room. 

"I can't wait to see yours."

Michi only groaned and shifted the hug to a headlock.

On stage, Fred was calling for a change of subject and Mangle took it as permission. It grabbed the microphone from his hand, took center stage with a flourish and began to sing in its feminine voice with perfect clarity. 

" _I really hate you,  
stop getting in my way_!"

Michi stopped dead, staring, marveling at Mangle's audacity as the rest of the toys freaked and the older animatronics looked shocked before they started to glare. Fred grabbed the microphone back, but Mangle continued to belt out the lyrics loudly enough that it was irrelevant. Jen vibrated with mirth under her arm and Jeremy, still standing by the door, made a considering noise.

"Huh. I wondered if they were going to leave that one in."

 

Jen and Michi danced for a while, tried and failed to find a table only to be rescued by three club patrons who recognized Jen from her performance earlier and let them squeeze into their booth.  They were at varying levels of intoxication but in a chatty, affectionate, affected-speech sort of fashion. One of the ladies was a little too drunk to stand, but her friends wanted to dance. Michi and Jen made convenient chaperones and got seats out of it. Win-win.  
      
"So," the woman... and Michi tried to remember if they'd exchanged names or if they'd just shouted 'guard lady!' at Jen, looked up from her examination of Jen's perfectly fine flesh-and-blood arm, "how'd they make it look like metal?"  
      
"Really awesome tattoo sleeve," Jen answered. "Also a body suit with metal parts on it."

"I wasn't sure about coming to Freddy Fashbear's Piesha," she continued, slurring just a bit. "I'm glad I did. I really like this show!"

"That's the same thing she said," Jen grinned, lightly smacking Michi's arm. "But it's all been good."

The woman whose name... Michi thought it started with a D. Dena? Dana that was it. Dana smiled and tried to look sly. "I'm not hearing any agreements over there."

Michi smiled, glancing away from the stage to meet her slightly wobbly gaze. "It's been a good time _so far_. I'm still expecting the jump-scare."

"Oooh," Dana leaned back in her chair and looked around, "that's 'prolly a good idea. So," she said, turning back to Jen, "who's your favorite character?"

"Golden Freddy."

"Really?" Dana stared for a moment. "He's a gigantic troll!"

Michi watched Jen smile a little, like she knew something Dana didn't, before she answered. "He's a surprise. I like surprises." 

"Which is how she got interested in the game in the first place, and pulled me into it," Michi said. 

Dana grimaced. "He does one-hit kills. I hate that kind of monster."

Jen shrugged. "It's not impossible to survive him, it's just difficult."

"What about you?" Dana asked. 

Michi met her gaze and smiled mischievously. She knew _exactly_ how this was going to sound, and she decided to own it. "I'm partial to bunnies."

As expected, Dana burst out laughing and Jen giggled. 

"Well, she survived," Dana said, waiving a hand at Jen, "so maybe Bonbon's flirting isn't as lethal as it looks."

"Bon is perfectly nice," Jen said over Michi's laughter. "They're all very nice. The whole stuffing-into-suits thing is just part of the show."

"So they aren't crazy or homicidal?" Michi chuckled.

"They're not homicidal. Crazy is up for debate."

Michi laughed harder. That had been a running joke between them since high school.

"Yours?" Jen asked Dana.

She shrugged. "I don't have a favorite-favorite, but Mangle has been kind of awesome."

"Mangle is that," Jen grinned.

Dana pouted a little. "You didn't say he or she."

Jen just continued to smile. 

"So you don't know?"

"So," Jen said, "I'm staying ambiguous. Mangle could be one, the other, neither or both. I haven't heard it from Mangle, so I stick with neutrality."

Michi smiled a little. Jen had always advocated that way of thinking and it was kind of a thrill to see she'd been right the whole time... or at least, whoever had written the story line for this show had agreed with her. Dana sighed, but pouted for all of five seconds before smiling again. 

"Okay. Character you liked least, not counting the Purple Guy?"

Jen shook her head, still grinning. "None of the above. I love everyone as an antagonist. Don't ask Michi or she'll rant."

That... that stung a bit. Even if it was true. Dana grinned and looked at Michi expectantly, regardless.

"The Marionette."

Jen groaned. 

"Another one-hit kill," Dana nodded. "Kinda a pain in the ass."

"My dislike of the Marionette has nothing to do with him as a game mechanic and everything to do with what was implied by the story."

"Miiiiiiiiiiich," Jen whined.

"She's heard this argument before," Michi explained to Dana before continuing. "You play the second game, right? Between the death screens you get the little 8 bit mini games that you can't actually win, which show a kid getting killed, followed by other kids getting killed. Then the Marionette shows up and 'gives gifts', which aren't defined other than as gift boxes, and then 'gives life', and puts mascot heads on each of four dead bodies. Or maybe they were supposed to be spirits, I'm not sure. 

"So basically, he takes the spirits of the murdered children, puts them in the animatronics and points them at their murderer. That's not their fault. They're newly dead, they're confused, they're trapped in a loop, they deserve sympathy even though they're out to kill you. The Marionette was trying to get you way before that. Every time one of the Toys had black eyes, _just like the Marionette_ , that was him trying to kick your ass. Even though the music box keeps his body complacent, he's still trying to kill you. Even though, presumably, he saw the murders happen and knows that it was that other asshole. The messages from phone guy imply that the day guard tampered with the animatronics, so he could kill the kids, and you're just some other asshole in the same uniform."

"Maybe he _didn't_ know who had killed the kids," Jen broke in. "He's a spirit too, yanno. The animatronics would just stare at the staff. They were trying to figure out who did it- and since 'you' had a Freddy mask, you were masquerading as one of the characters, just like the murderer did, you-"

"He manipulated the toys and he manipulated the spirits of those children-"

"Trying to catch a murderer!"

"With no regard to collateral damage-"

" _Child_."

"Children have to be told _why_ what they've done is bad, or they're not going to learn better."

Jen put her hands over her face and whined into them. Normally she'd continue the argument or start shouting 'agree to disagree'. The change in pattern threw Michi off and she felt her ire fade. Then she realized she'd felt ire more because Jen was keeping secrets than because of the argument, and rubbed her forehead slowly.

"Sorry."

Jen waved that away with one hand, still covering her face with the other. 

"I think" Dana said, slowly, "that you guys played the games a _lot_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Mangle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o2aA4fHhoo) by Groundbreaking  
> [ Survive the Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbjAcmNWX-Y) and [The Show Must Go On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCyW3vEh2uk) by MandoPony  
> [Die in a Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AibtyCAhyQE) by The Living Tombstone


	4. The Main Attraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> is Golden Freddy. We all know it ;)

"Hi!"

Once again, Michi heard him before she saw him. She still flinched, but... it was funny. It was _in character_. Either way, she grinned as she turned to him.

"Hi," Michi answered.   
      
Balloon Boy blinked at her. He smiled wider and held up a hand for her to take.  Michi slipped her fingers over his palm.  His hand was cool, colder than human flesh with less give to it.  It buzzed faintly against her palm as he walked past Jen, still smiling, still holding Michi's hand.  She followed and tried to ignore the looks of curiosity she got from the other patrons. Jen squeezed her shoulder and Michi whimpered theatrically.  

Balloon Boy acted as valet for the concert's guest participants.  He had come to get Jen earlier.  Michi had noticed him popping in and out at regular intervals, dispensing balloons and sometimes glow sticks to the club-goers. He had introduced a song by playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie. Balloon Boy had grabbed Jen and another person (who must have signed the waiver). Three people had turned into five, seven, until nearly the whole of the dancers were singing _Pop Goes the Weasel_ at the top of their lungs. That song had filtered into _No Strings_ and screams of glee had broken along with the ring.

Michi followed Balloon Boy through the employees only doorway and felt her own shiver of anticipation.  Unease, yes, but also butterflies.  She was behind the scenes now. She already knew the back halls were a reproduction of the checkerboard white and black from the games (albeit much cleaner). But this was her turn to join the band, to be part of the show. 

Now that they were away from the crowd, she could hear the soft tapping of their shoes, and the softer hum of servos as he moved.  He paused for a moment, looking at her.  Their hands stopped swinging.  Michi bit back a chuckle.  Had he started that?  Maybe she had.  He grinned, bounced a little on his toes, and skipped.   
      
What the f- how was he this precious?  He acted just like one of her kids at the daycare and she- the body language was _perfect_.  She knew exactly what he wanted and fell into step easily- or maybe he did with her, shifting his weight until they were skipping the rest of the way down the hall, then through a door without knocking.  Conversation died and Balloon Boy dropped her hand, running up to Mangle and giggling carelessly.  Their faces were blank, staring.  Michi felt the impulse to apologize... and then run- until Bon blinked, smiled, and the moment passed.  
      
"Hey there," he said, hopping (literally) from the couch and smiling. He grabbed Michi's hand and shook it. "How ya doin?  Nice to meetcha," he said conversationally, without pausing to let her answer.  "Are you new in town?  Don't think I've seen you before.  It's great to-"  
      
"We already _did_ that number, Bon," Chi smirked. "Don't make me crane kick you again."

"The Tai Chi joke is never going to get old," Michi heard herself saying.  
      
Mangle laughed, the chuckle slightly metallic. Mangle held its arms outward and Balloon Boy climbed up them, into Mangle's embrace.  Chi smiled at Michi. She shivered, but not at the smile.  Chi's smile was oddly non-threatening.  Maybe it was the beak.  Maybe it was the way the feathers around her eyes scrunched when she did it.  Rather, Michi shivered because Bon's animatronic- but very soft and fuzzy- fingers were trailing up her arm.  She remembered his earlier joke, and to her horror, felt herself blushing.  She still remembered the rabbit her local library had once owned and how soft it had felt when she pet it.  It didn't help that she felt a faint sense of star-worship.  She had been a teenager when the games came out; these characters were icons, despite their newness.  She couldn't believe Fazbear Entertainment (or whoever their parent company was) had gotten to this level of animatronic before Disney.  
      
"Michi, right?"  Chi sauntered forward, pink skirt swishing, "Let's get you ready.  We've got twenty minutes but it goes by faster than you'd expect."  She extracted Michi from Bon's grasp- there was a slap and a faint whimper from the rabbit animatronic, and Michi had no words.  Chi's wing felt like real down, real feathers over the same unyielding frame of synthetics.  
      
"Yeah," Bon was saying behind her, "maybe, but don't get your hopes up yet, huh, Beebee?"

Michi glanced over her shoulder just as Chi led her around the corner and opened a door which led into a small dressing room.  There was a makeup table, a clothing rack filled with purple attire and matching purple baseball caps hanging on the wall.  
      
"Now everything on the rack is clean so just pick whatever fits best.  On top of your clothes, instead of your clothes, whatever you feel more comfortable with. Just make sure you check your outfit before you take off the plums because we _do_ swing you around a little and people have had 'wardrobe malfunctions'." Chi made wing quotes and Michi found herself snickering.  Chi smiled at her again and left, tugging the door closed.  
      
Michi shook her head. She stood in the room for a moment, unfocused... twenty, well probably closer to fifteen minutes at this point.  She had fifteen minutes to get changed. She was a veteran of backstage costume changes and she only needed five. That left her only ten to process the animatronics and that wasn't enough time. Not nearly enough.  _How_ did they have so much personality?  If there were people behind the curtain, she should have seen them by now.  There were no puppeteers. There were only the animatronics and what seemed to be very, very advanced AI.  

She locked the door and stepped out of her shoes as she headed for the rack.  The hangers were labeled for gender as well as size. Michi opted for the larger of the two shirts she knew would fit.  She had gotten a few undesirable dance prospects earlier and she didn't want any of them coming back if her blouse happened to 'accidentally/not accidentally' rip. On second thought she was just going to keep her tank-top on.  She didn't care how hot Jen had said the spotlights were.

Michi divested herself of her jeans, grabbed the slacks and smelled them. The pants smelled of laundry detergent and Michi felt reassured as she pulled them on.  She pulled her own shoes back on and thanked God she hadn't worn heels.  Sneakers would have been better, but the flats had a good rubber sole and hopefully it'd be fine.  But Jen had been dancing a little bit during _Survive the Night_ and... fuck it.  She'd wing it.  The animatronics knew what they were doing.  ... She might sprain an ankle.  Ugh.  Think. Positive.  Michi.  

There were combs and brushes on the table. Michi didn't notice any makeup, but she wouldn't have used beauty products that didn't belong to her, regardless. Michi stifled a giggle at the horsehair brush sitting next to what she knew was a curry comb. She grabbed a comb with wide teeth, found the forgotten hair elastic in her jeans pocket, and scraped her dark, curly hair into a ponytail. She was taking down what looked like the most appropriate hat when there came a knock on the door.

"Hello, hello?"

She swallowed, grabbed the door and twisted the knob to unlock it. Freddy was on the other side. His height put his face in the corner of the door frame. 

"Hey," he said with a grin, "you look _great_!"

Michi took a moment to stare. He _meant_ to look friendly. Maybe. Probably. He still looked like half the nightmares she'd had when she was fifteen. "You know how surreal this moment is for me, right now?"

The grin became a smirk and he chuckled. _That_ chuckle. Michi giggled nervously because _there_ were the the other nightmares. Still. She managed to convince her feet that they weren't leading her to imminent death as Freddy waved her out of the dressing room and Michi complied.

"I hesitate to start _Les Toreadors_ on you, but hey, if it gets you in the right frame of mind-" He took her elbow as Michi entered the hallway. 

"No," Michi squeaked. "No, I think I'm good." She was used to random hands grabbing at her without much warning. They were usually smaller and easily removed when necessary. Still. Animatronics. No strings. They were _really_ tactile after you signed the waiver. 'Warmth and life, why don't you share?' Freddy guided her back into the green room. Michi noticed the Toys lounging again, Chi leaning against Fred on the couch and Bon giving her a thumbs up. Foxy was walking up a staircase which Michi assumed led backstage.

"Now," Freddy said, "are you familiar with MandoPony's _Just Gold_?"  
      
Michi's head whipped around.  If anyone accused her of staring at Foxy's tail, she would deny everything. She smiled a little at Freddy's question. _Just Gold_ was one of her favorites. It _was_ Jen's favorite. "I... I'm gonna end up in a suit, aren't I?"  
      
Freddy smiled and patted her arm.  "We'll start you off seated at a desk, facing the audience.  You know what the song is _about_ , which is good. We use it to introduce Golden Freddy."  
      
"So he'll be creeping around me and I should just, react, try to get away?"  
      
"You got it," Freddy said, giving her a thumbs up with his free hand. "There's a little bit of swing dancing in the stage direction, if you're up for it?" 

"I can do that," Michi confirmed. "Where, exactly-"

"The middle, just after 'In my opinion you're much too kind'."

They went silent as Freddy guided her up the stairs, then onto the main stage.  Her night vision identified Chica, who waved.  Bonnie was absorbed in his guitar and didn't look up.  Freddy led her to a chair at what she knew looked like a desk from the front, but was more a podium than anything else.  There weren't even drawers.  With a final pat on the shoulder, Freddy left her there.   
      
Michi felt for the sleek little plastic tablet that was supposed to be her camera feed.  She didn't pick it up, only touched it gently to have something to do with her hands.  _What_ was she doing?  She didn't like this... no, no that was a lie, she did enjoy this.  She'd enjoyed performing in high school, she'd liked the handful of plays she'd done in college and that brief stint with the Starlake theater troupe before she'd realized she couldn't deal with all the criticism from their jackass director and gone back to school for her child care degree.  She felt a hell of a lot less pressure reading books in funny voices.  Normal criticism involved forgetting to cut the crusts off a sandwich, and she responded to it by teasing the kids that roughage was good for them.

The music began in darkness.  Michi let her eyes widen, her breath come in obvious pants as the stage lights brightened. If her hands shook a little as she touched the tablet and glanced around in time with the beat of the music, that was good.  The music hammered at her, through her, and she could barely hear the audience singing along, much less see them beyond the stage lights.  It was easy to feel alone, threatened. She flinched at Freddy's laughter.  
      
She caught glimpses of a shape out of the corner of her eye- felt the brush of fingertips across her shoulders, playing with her ponytail.  She wanted to see it- _him_. No. No, she didn't.  It was the _last_ thing she wanted.  A faint hum of static at her ear spurred her up and out of her chair. Someone tapped her shoulder. Michi turned and saw nothing- only to have her right hand claimed by animatronic fingers and another hand slide beneath her left arm.      

Michi turned back. Five seconds passed before her brain conceptualized that she was staring at Golden Freddy. Horrible reaction time, commented a little voice in her head. In the game, he would have killed you by now. Golden Freddy probably agreed. He was _smirking_ at her. Then he was spinning her under his arm and... swing dancing. What the hell would they have done if she'd said she _didn't_ know swing dancing? At least he knew how to lead- and it was a short set. By the end of the chorus, Michi was back in her chair. Gold loomed over her with his head next to her ear. Michi heard the soft whirring of servos; Golden Freddy mouthed the words as Freddy sang. His hands lay heavily on her forearms. 

Oh, she was in the right frame of mind. Her heart was pounding. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to jump out of the chair as Gold pulled it away from the desk, spun her around to face him and waggled a finger in her face. 

He shook her hand forcibly, used the grip to pull her up out of her seat, then presented her to the audience with an arm around her shoulders. He waved a hand, palm outward. Inwardly, Michi swore. She was losing track of the song. What was-  
      
" _Take it with pride and enjoy the ride,_ " Freddy sang as Gold twitched her hat, patted her cheek, and left her standing there. Alone. " _You'll forever be a part of this community_.

" _You may think it's all in your mind-_ "  
      
Michi turned around. Freddy and Gold were standing, both slightly off-center. They were both smirking at her, eyes narrowed. No, their eyes were _black_ , black with white points of light in the center. There was an empty suit behind them, suspended by wires from the ceiling.  
      
" _You are the main attraction, your story must be told-_ "  
      
This was real. It was _real_ \- and Chica was staring at her. Foxy was smirking, lips curled back over his teeth. She couldn't jump off the stage. She couldn't chance breaking something- they'd only catch her quicker that way. Bonnie's head was tilted to the side, watching. He sank into a crouch- he was getting ready to move. Michi veered away from them, away from _Foxy_ , between Chica and Golden Freddy. It wasn't logical, it was prey instinct driving her away from the most obvious predator and it made _no_ difference. 

Michi felt something pass over her head. Bonnie landed in front of her and she stared at him, too confused to backpedal. The part of her brain not gibbering in panic hadn't expected that. She didn't know why. He was a rabbit, of course he could hop. Michi tensed to run, still staring. He looked like a predator. He was a rabbit, and he looked like a predator. Her rational mind knew she couldn't dodge fast enough to get away but that part of her wasn't in control and she backed up... right into Foxy.

Hands grasped her arms. She was spun around, held fast- and she threw her body backwards as they dragged her toward the gaping blackness at the back of the suit. She didn't _want_ to go in there. She _didn't_ \- Michi locked her knees, pushing at the floor for leverage as she shoved backward. She tried to wrench her arms out of their grip but they moved with her, and Bonnie's hand grabbed the waistband of her pants, _lifting_ -  
      
"Fist yer hands, lass," Foxy whispered.  
      
What- but she obeyed, and they guided her arms forward, past cosmetic bits of wire and metal- into the embrace of a sleeker, black bodysuit that was the lining.  The animatronics zipped the suit up in the back.  Michi felt its weight settle on her and.. it was _fucking heavy_.  She managed one step as the chorus repeated, and then another.  
      
"- _some bots are just distractions_ ,  
_some bots are Just Gold_.”  
      
Michi let herself slide to the floor, limbs pooling into a seated position, the best mimic she could do of the Golden Freddy hallucination without being able to actually see a damn thing. She stayed there as the music died, and the crowd lost their minds. Her vision got _worse_ \- the spotlights must have turned off.  There were hands under her arms. They lifted her into a standing position, and another set unzipped the suit.  
      
"Ye alright, lass?"

Nope. No she wasn't. Her heart was still racing. She realized they were in the wings just as a set of hands wrapped around her waist, helping her out of the suit. They continued to hold her, helping her balance when a foot got caught and she stumbled. She'd heard Foxy earlier but he was gone; the older animatronics were talking to the audience, congratulating themselves on having more experience and therefore success at ‘making new friends’ than the Toys. When Michi tried to stand, her knees buckled. Fred was grabbing the suit and hauling it off to a stand, glancing at her nervously as Bon held her around the waist and grinned.  
      
"Good job!" Bon congratulated, putting her hat in her hand- when had she lost it?  
      
Michi blinked at him, still dazed, and Chi nudged her chin.  
      
"Look at me.  Breathe.  Do you need water?"  
      
Michi shook her head.  She didn't need water, she needed to sit.  She needed to not be held up by an animatronic rabbit and she needed her heart to remember that it was all just an _act_.  There was more cheering and Freddy asking for another round of applause for their special guest.  
      
Michi realized he was talking about _her_ and her stomach heaved.  
      
"Oop- okay, into the green room we go," Bon was saying.   
      
"Oh _dear_ ," Freddy was barely audible as Michi stumbled across the floor, leaning on Bon, "I guess she needs to get used to her new _frame_."

Michi lost track of a moment or two. There was fur under her hand- Bon was half carrying her backstage, down the stairs, and they'd barely gotten her on the couch- a bottle of water in her hand (another one pressed to her forehead)- when Balloon Boy came through the hall door, Jen hot on his heels.

"Everyone stand back," Bon said, splaying his fingers. "I know what to do. I'm _a cuddle bunny_."

Chi stared at him for a moment. They all did. Then she groaned at the pun. Michi giggled helplessly. It was fine. _She_ was fine, but Jen sat beside her on the couch and Michi didn't try to be brave about it, she hid in Jen's arms, giggling and trying not to sob.

"Damn, and I had just gotten you relaxed," Jen murmured, stroking her hair. "But you were awesome. I'm so proud of you."

Michi shook her head quickly. Too much. Too much, too soon, and this was the other reason she'd quit Starlake.  
      
"I'm sorry," Michi whispered.  "I'm sorry- I-"  
      
"Oh hey now," Bon said quietly, "that's hardly the first time someone's had a panic attack on stage.  We're awesome like that."

Michi giggled again.   
      
"But if you think you can," he continued, "we’d like you back out there to show everyone you didn't _actually_ get stuffed into a suit. That scream was really convincing."  
  
"What scream?" Michi muttered into Jen's shoulder. Oh God. She must have screamed on stage... no wonder her throat hurt.   
      
"Please," Jen scoffed, answering Bon and jostling Michi a little, "give her five minutes and she'll have her banter on.  C'mon.  Let's get you changed."   
      
Michi breathed deep, let it out, and nodded against Jen's shoulder.  As they stood up, she was able to give Bon and Chi a wobbly smile.  Beebee danced nervously from foot to foot before holding out his hands.  Michi lifted her arm in response and the childlike animatronic came forward, hugging her around the waist.  When he let go he was all smiles again, skipping out the door.  Fred hovered in the hallway and he seemed... relieved.   
      
Jen came into the dressing room with her, shutting the door and leaning against it.  "You okay?  Really?"  
      
Michi finally opened the water in her hand and knocked back half of it.  Then she looked at it.   
      
"I'm... really lucky that I went to the bathroom before that song."  
      
Jen beamed at her and giggled.  
      
"Fuck," Michi breathed, unbuttoning the shirt and pulling it out of the slacks.  This was tradition too- her and Jen in a tiny room, one or both of them half-clad.  "That was intense."  She tossed the shirt on the couch.  Jen grabbed it and flung it into a little hamper Michi hadn't noticed earlier.  She pulled off the slacks and traded Jen for her jeans.  "That was worse than the games.  So much worse."  
      
"You mean _awesome_."   
      
"Tell that to my heart attack."  She zipped up her pants, stuffed her feet back into her shoes and picked up her blouse... and then handed it to Jen.  She kept the hat but twisted the bill slightly off-center and retrieved the purple shirt. Michi unbuttoned the cuffs. She pulled it back on, leaving one side to hang off her shoulder and artfully displacing it.  Jen was still grinning happily, proudly, as Michi pulled at disheveled locks of hair to make them more obvious.  
      
"Michi, baby, I would hold your coat any day.  You don't even have to ask."  
      
Michi smiled, smooched Jen hard on the cheek and marched out the door.  The animatronics looked up as she strode through the green room.  She thought she heard 'Go get 'em!' from Chi and threw her hands in the air, waggling them.  
      
The timing was kind of perfect.  'Mike' was on stage, singing _No More_.  Michi stumbled onstage as he sang _Tie me up, put me into a suit-_   Foxy noticed her first, then Chica, and the music died.  
      
" _I know what happened here-_ " Mike trailed off as the spotlight found her.  The audience cheered as she stood there for a moment panting, jaw clenched. She stalked past Mike and up to Freddy. Michi didn't give Freddy a chance to form words.  
      
"You _stuffed_ me into a _suit_."  There was a moment of silence.  Freddy glanced at the audience, then looked Michi up and down.  Michi straightened her shirt a little.  "I _got out_ ," she said defensively.  
      
The Monty Python fans appreciated it, she could tell by their whistling.  
      
"Well, yes," Freddy said.  "That does happen sometimes."  
      
"You-" Michi cut herself off, pointing a finger at him. She played up being too incensed to speak, finally ripping the baseball cap off her head and throwing it to the stage to raucous cheers from the audience.  "I," she said as she divested herself of the button-down. " _Fucking. QUIT!_ " and the cheering almost drowned out the reverberations of her voice over the sound system.  She caught the overly-surprised expressions on the animatronics' faces as she turned around and stomped toward the wings, only to be halted when Gold held up both hands and offered her a small slip of paper.  She looked at the check blankly for a moment, remembered what it was supposed to be... and gave Gold a venomous look.  His ears wilted as he cringed and shuffled out of her path.  The audience was laughing.  She started walking again.  
      
"Yanno," Freddy called after her, "we actually need you to come in on Saturday-"  
      
Without breaking stride, Michi flipped him the bird.  The audience roared their approval as she disappeared into the wings.

"So,'' Mike said after they died down, "I'm _not_ getting the weekend off." 

The audience laughed at that, and whatever non-verbal response Freddy gave him. Michi met Jen in the wings and sucked in a shaking breath. 

Jen handed Michi her blouse and wrapped an arm around her friend's waist. "Do we vanish triumphantly into a cab, or stick around?"  
      
Michi thought about it, scoffed.  "After all that, I _need_ a drink."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [No Strings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EkVN1umZuk) by Groundbreaking  
> [Just Gold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhJGXzOE5fQ) by MandoPony  
> [ No More](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF2ydcaRlXA) by NateWantsToBattle


	5. Interceptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michi tries, briefly, to leave. She really should know better.

Most of the attention had been positive.  Letting her hair back down and putting on her blouse helped keep some of the club-goers from realizing Michi was the 'chick who gave Freddy the bird', but others recognized her face or had noticed her walking around with Beebee earlier.  Still, mostly good things.  She got compliments, a few business cards... but after the pushy bastard from some bar with a suggestive name and an even worse silhouette on the card he handed her was manhandled out the door by Jeremy and another bouncer, Michi and Jen abandoned their table for the bar.  After a while, Jen bounced off to dance.  Michi sat near Teddy the bartender... and for the first time, wondered if _that_ was a pseudonym or just one hell of a coincidence.

She didn't get the chance to ask, pulled into a conversation with a fellow patron who introduced himself as Joe. He could talk game theory, but more importantly, he could tell her about the history of the pizzeria. 

"When it first opened, they started out with the original four. The did the first act just and drew it out, but it was nowhere near as long as this is."

"I'm beginning to think they called it _Survive the Night_ because of the drinking, not to pay homage to the games."

Joe smirked and raised his beer in salute.

"So um," Michi glanced at the stage. Chi was belting out the lyrics to _It's Been so Long_ while Golden Freddy worked the turntables, "when did the rest of them show up?"

"Let's see," he scratched at the label on his bottle meditatively. "Golden Freddy started making random appearances." He smirked, and Michi answered with her own. "A friend of mine would tell you the Marionette started showing up around the same time that Golden Freddy actually _took over _some nights. Like, the other four wouldn't even be on after nine and Golden Freddy would just DJ the whole time. But _I_ never noticed, and it'd make more sense for him to show up with the rest of the toys. But hell," he shrugged, took a drink. "What do I know? Mangle, though? Mangle was badass."__

"Oh?" 

Joe grinned. "They brought the toys in one at a time, and whenever they did, they'd hype it up, really promote it beforehand."

"To get more people in, sure." Michi nodded. 

"Right. So they advertised Toy Freddy for _weeks_. There were ads on Youtube, TV-" 

Michi was kind of cursing her ad-blocker right now, but she simply nodded. 

"Then, the night he's supposed to come on, Freddy does the lead up for him," Joe was grinning widely, "out walks Mangle. Everybody stares, even the animatronics. The crowd starts to bitch. Some of them, anyway. But Mangle smirks, looks around and goes 'Not what you were expecting? I get that a lot.'" 

Michi's jaw dropped as she grinned. She could see it. After Mangle's behavior on stage, after Mangle had sung _Die in a Fire_ without the slightest indication of care, she could see it very clearly. 

"Freddy goes 'Yeah, we thought Toy Freddy would be arriving today.' and Mangle says 'I know, but after what happened to his legs, the factory had to keep him longer.' Freddy asks Mangle what happened to Toy Freddy's legs." Joe was, by this point, laughing almost too hard to get out the words. "Meanwhile, the whole time, Mangle's been standing there on _bear legs_ and it's totally _obvious_ what happened to Toy Freddy. So Mangle doesn't answer Freddy, just stands there and _smiles_."

So apparently Mangle had _always_ been awesome. 

__

"Well hey there!" 

Michi jumped, twisting to look at Freddy. He was standing at the end of the bar, looking at her with an oddly tentative expression on his face.

"Chi told me what happened after the song. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Freddy... hi." It wasn't all that odd that he was standing there. It felt odd. But now that everyone had been introduced and Gold was dominating the stage, the other animatronics were mingling with the crowd. It shouldn't have surprised her to see him and it was actually really... sweet. He looked so damn _earnest_. "No, don't worry about it. I'm fine. I just... have a little problem with immersion." She smiled, eager to reassure him because his fuzzy face was contrite and concerned and... oh god, she was making Freddy Fazbear _sad_.

"Teddy?" she called down the bar. "Could I have a shot of _Jack_?"

"Ah," and Freddy took the stool beside her... and then shifted over a bit because in fact his bulk required two, "good old Mr. Daniels."

Michi snorted and glanced at him. She tried not to draw parallels between this and every dinner she'd had in Disney World as a child. She wasn't sure if it was better or worse that these characters weren't mute. For all intents and purposes, this was _the_ Freddy Fazbear and not just a skilled actor. She still hadn't been able to tell whether the AI were programmed to be the characters they resembled or... well, it was probably that. She had listened to someone's Siri imitate John Wayne but... and now she just needed to stop thinking about it. She downed the shot and some chatty part of her brain decided it would be a good idea to explain further.

"I've always been good at inhabiting a role when I'm acting, but not keeping enough distance to switch tack when I need to. I was better at improv than following a script and it kind of... I found it hard to leave the mindset behind when the season was over. Characters tended to... linger. Kind of ridiculous but when I played the video games," she waved a hand at him, "I jumped at shadows for a month, and I had dreams about animatronics coming to stuff me into suits."

Freddy had been chuckling quietly in agreement, but he fell silent. Michi looked at him. He was looking at her. He was _pouting_ at her, and she realized what she'd just said.

"No. No-no. It's okay, _really_. I absolutely knew what _Just Gold_ was about. I should have expected it. _I_ got too into it. You guys were awesome."

"So you're okay."

"I am okay."

"Good, because you may not be in a few minutes." He said it so playfully that she burst out laughing.

"Are you asking me to do another song?"

"Why, do you want to?"

Michi shook her head half in amusement, half to answer his question. "Hey... could I ask you a question?" When he looked encouraging, she gave him an apologetic look. "How much do you know about the games?" 

"Those extremely flattering representations of our story?" Freddy grinned. 

That's what she'd thought. Michi smiled briefly. "I guess I'm just... wondering what interpretation they went with. If people played through the good ending in the third game, the implication was that you'd gone... away. Your souls moved on, so... I guess you came back to rock?" 

Freddy's expression had been growing more and more solemn. At the last he smirked. 

"I'm reading too much into it," Michi murmured. "I'm sorry-" 

He waved that away, patting a fuzzy hand over hers. 

"I just... I want to know if _you're_ okay." 

Freddy sat silently for a long moment. "It's not often," he mused, "that someone asks that question." Michi couldn't anticipate it as he leaned forward, bussed her cheek with his muzzle and left without another word. 

"Well, damn," Teddy sighed as he dried a glass. Michi glanced at him for an explanation. He shook his head, "we're not supposed to piss off the animatronics. It's in the employee guidelines. He didn't look mad, but-." 

He'd seemed upset. Michi rubbed a hand over her forehead. It was a dick question. She realized that. She'd known it as she was asking, but Chi had sung _It's Been so Long_. Now the crowd was screaming along to _Just an Attraction_. They were _acknowledging_ the whole of the storyline... sort of. Kind of. Shit. 

"Maybe I should go after him," she muttered to herself. 

"Yeah, _no_. He took off when you were being sympathetic. If you go after him to make sure he's okay, that's still you being sympathetic." 

Yes. She knew that. She also knew that sometimes a kid just needed to walk it off and collect themselves, not have a talk and a good cry. Besides, Freddy was a... an adult-like humanoid bear animatronic. If he _wanted_ to talk to her, he would come find her. 

"Besides," Teddy gestured toward the employees-only door, which Freddy had disappeared behind. "You're not allowed back there without an invitation." 

"I'm surprised that it isn't company policy to just treat them like robots," Michi said. She guessed it broke the illusion... and well... people cared about these characters. 

__"People who do don't stick around long," Teddy shrugged, "and yanno... 'beloved characters'. 'They deserve a little respect', insert funny quote from game here."_ _

__Michi looked at him, a smirk twitching at the corners of her lips._ _

__"I've picked up a few things while working here." his tone was defensive, but the lazy smile made it a joke. Michi nodded._ _

__"Stay golden, Teddy."_ _

He winked. Michi felt slightly better as she approached the dance floor and found Jen on the sidelines, singing along with the rest of the crowd to _Stay Away from Me_.

__

Michi grabbed Jen's shoulder and shook a little. She wasn't going to try and scream over _Not Here All Night_. Golden Freddy's rendition, with Foxy joking about getting a little _technical_ just before he adjusted his voice box and started singing, was far too loud to talk over. Michi mouthed that she needed some air. Jen gave her a thumbs up, jumping up and down in time with the music more than dancing. Michi waded through the dancers, heading for a slight partition in the crowd before she realized they were making space for Beebee, and she was the reason. He took her hand before she saw him, tugging to get her off the dance floor. 

Maybe Freddy wanted to talk to her.  Maybe Beebee just wanted attention.  She followed him past one of the bouncers and into the hallway behind the Employees-Only door.  Not five steps later, the door behind them slammed open.  
      
"Woah.  Woah-woah.  Interception, Beebee."  
      
Michi wondered if Bon was a football fan.  Beebee stopped, but pointed down the hallway and waved their joined hands to indicate Michi.  
      
"Yeah, Beebs, I know the boss wants to talk to her but that doesn't sound like much fun.  I'll take care of Miss Chi, okay?"  
      
"No," Michi spoke up, "I _should_ talk to Freddy, if he wants to.  It's okay-"  
      
Balloon Boy grinned, started to walk again.  Michi followed him and abruptly Bon was in front of them. He scooped Beebee off the ground and situated the smaller animatronic on his hip.  
      
"Yeah, but he's not taking you to see _Freddy_ ," Bon whispered, crowding close to her and holding Beebee in his left arm, "he's taking you to see _the boss_."   
      
Michi didn't ask.  She understood from Bon's tone that that this would be a bad thing. She found herself glancing at Beebee, who was still holding her hand, smile still innocently fixed on her face-  
      
"Don't blame him," Bon said indignantly, "he's just a kid-" 

Michi stared at _him_ then, catching her breath.  A kid?  Bon huffed in exasperation. 

"I don't mean like _that_.  Shit."  He rolled his eyes, but they were just a little too wide.  His ears were twitching and he glanced behind them.  Then he started walking, holding Beebee, leading Michi because Beebee still hadn't let go of her hand.  
      
"I just mean that he's young and he does what he's told.  It wouldn't occur to him-"  
      
"That he was putting me in danger?"  
      
"I never _said_ you'd be in any danger- Beebee, would you let go of Miss Chi's hand, please?"  
      
Bon was talking quickly, obviously nervous. 'Miss Chi' was what her kids called her. To hear it from Bon's mouth unsettled her more than it should have.  Bon was using the honorific to refer to her while talking to Beebee, prompting him to politeness even though Beebee didn't actually speak.   
      
"Oh, no.  No danger, I could just be stuffed in a suit," Michi joked.  
      
"That outcome _is_ better avoided."  
      
It should have been a joke.  It _sounded_ like a joke, but Bon was just on the edge of panic. Beebee suddenly looked horrified, as if it were an outcome he hadn't considered.  He _let go_ of her hand like he'd been burnt-  
      
"Bon," a voice murmured, slightly caustic, "you talk too much.  It's a fault in your coding."   
      
Michi saw the Marionette at the end of the hall, hanging upside down from one of the emergency lights.  She saw his frozen smile and didn't realize she was moving until she'd backpedaled into the doors and past them, slamming into someone as they swung shut. 

Hands caught her, helped her regain balance.  A voice asked if she was okay, the hands held onto her.  Michi tried to get away, recognized Jeremy a second before she tried to kick him. Michi subsided when she realized he was helping her walk away from the employees only doorway.  The only problem was that he was very tall, she couldn't see over his shoulder, and she couldn't hear anything over the music.  
      
"Is he following us?"  
      
"Who?"  
      
"The Marionette," and she might be screaming.  She shouldn't be screaming.  Jeremy looked at her strangely, then he recovered, smiling the forced smile again.  
      
"The Marionette only comes out when the music box stops playing. Don't worry about it. C'mon, let's get you sitting down."  

That wasn't exactly true. The Marionette had popped up during _It's Me_ and _Back Again_ , but to see him featured, suspended high above Golden Freddy and twisting around suspended wires?  It had been both fantastic and oddly terrifying. Michi had been relieved that he'd stayed on stage. Apparently she couldn't _count_ on that. 

Jeremy guided her to a miraculously, there weren't many, empty table and got her sitting. He stayed there to make sure she wasn't going to fall over. "Should I call you a cab?"

__"That's..." it was probably a good idea. She'd done her audience participation, they'd stayed to see Gold. Michi had had more than her quota for insanity and maybe she and Jen could just-_ _

__"Stay here," Jeremy said, taking her indecision as permission. "Someone will come to get you when it arrives."_ _

Okay. Yes. She'd leave. She'd wait until the cab got here, locate Jen and leave. Jen's nice little apartment was waiting for both of them and she could go to sleep, forget most of what had gone on tonight and-  
      
"Can I get you anything?"  
      
Michi glanced at the waiter- not Amber- she wondered briefly if the shift had changed.  She wanted a drink.  She shouldn't _have_ a drink.  Mangle was singing with her other head as back-up while Golden Freddy worked the turntables and danced behind his console.  The Marionette wanted to talk to her, she'd made Freddy upset, and probably gotten Bon in trouble.  
      
"Can I get a chocolate cupcake and a bottle of water, please?" she wanted comfort food. She didn't know how long the cab would take. If she didn't finish the cupcake, she wouldn't finish the cupcake. She didn't care. The waiter gave her an affirmative and walked away- and Michi remembered the _moment_ he got out of earshot that sometimes Chi and Chica played waitress to deliver the cupcakes, because canon.  Michi dropped her head to the table, covered it with both arms and whined into the top.  
      
"Are you okay?"  
      
Michi shook her head, not lifting it.  She heard a plate rattle onto the table, and a slender form settled next to her, wrapping an arm and a cloak of feathers, around her shoulders.   
      
"You've been getting that question a lot tonight.  Sorry."  
      
"It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to," Michi muttered into the table.  "Oh, wait."  
      
Chi laughed.  "Jen is dancing with a handsome young man.  They look like they're having fun."  
      
"Good."  It _was_ good.  It was her twenty-fifth birthday, she should not be having a nervous breakdown or dealing with Michi's.  "But you should probably take off before I make you upset or make you say something you shouldn't or-"  
      
Chi sighed and her wing nub dug into Michi's back, massaging a little.  "We were created _after_ the phrase 'dumb bunny' or I'd blame Bon for its existence." 

"You guys are being really, really nice to me, and I'm not sure why."  What Michi actually wanted to say was that she felt unsettled by the visits.  Sure, everyone seemed to have enjoyed her performance earlier, but the animatronics coming to talk with her over and over....  It was strange and flattering to be the focus of their attention when she'd done nothing to deserve it.  "It's not like any of you know me.  Is it part of the show?  Part of the expectation for your performance or-"  
      
Chi patted her on the back, oddly gentle for a full wing-clap, "I'd jokingly say that we were recruiting and you'd 'suit' the band, if I were being professional."   
      
Michi finally sat up to face Chi, lips pursed.  In fact she expected something exactly like that, and this was another problem with themed restaurants.  With _this_ themed restaurant.  This was what she'd been worried about at the beginning, and forgotten in the wake of the dinner performance and possibly more alcoholic drinks than she should have had.  She didn't know where the line was drawn.  She wasn't _sure_ if she was actually in danger... but she didn't think so.  Not right now.  She had no clue how much of this was performance and how much was real... and Chi smiled, looking wistfully serious.  She looked like Freddy had earlier.  
      
"As many people who've come here since we opened... not many get an opportunity to sign the waiver.  Security reasons, mostly. We have to be selective.  After that, it's only about one out of fifteen who actually sign, and after _that_ , well, some people click with us better than others.  You and Jen have been lovely, and we're hoping you'll come back."  
      
"You're lonely," Michi murmured.  
          
"Some of us more than others," Chi answered, glancing at the crowd. She watched the tall, brightly-colored figures moving around... and also the animatronics complimenting cosplayers on their outfits.  Chi turned back to Michi and grinned, eyes scrunching shut.  "Besides.  The more people get used to us being 'handsy' with them, the more they'll," she giggled, "get with the program!"  
      
"Also come back to spend money," Michi joked. 

"That too!  So you eat that cupcake, missy."  Chi stood, smoothed her skirt with a little shimmy and gave Michi a pout, pointing a wing at her as she walked away.  
      
Michi saluted and examined the cupcake in front of her.  Good god... she'd forgotten how big they were. She saw Jen wandering at the edge of the crowd, waving goodbye to the man she'd been dancing with and tucking a piece of paper into her pocket. Good for her. Good for Michi, because her timing was perfect. The music was still loud, but they weren't near any speakers. 

" _Jen! Jen! Come help me eat this!_ "

She located Michi, threw her hands in the air, grabbed the arm of a tall young man beside her- not the guy she'd danced with- and walked over to the table.

"Michi, Rick Dressler. Rick, Michi Peris."

"Good," Michi answered, "it might take all three of us." She shook Rick's hand, shoved the plate at Jen for cutting and looked at the man for a longer moment. Then she grinned and tried to forget what she’d said earlier about licking him... not that he wasn’t appealing. "You're Mike."

__"You're Just Gold," he smiled._ _

__"You have a wonderful voice!"_ _

__"Thanks."_ _

__"Isn't this just like being in the game?" Jen grinned, picking up a piece of the cupcake._ _

__"Truer words," Michi muttered, grabbing a section. Rick claimed the third and promptly ate half of his slice in one bite. "Damn, Rick, slow down." He grinned, showing off cake-speckled teeth._ _

__"Did you even eat dinner?" Jen asked. Rick shook his head, still grinning with his lips closed._ _

__"So how long have you worked here?" Michi asked._ _

__Rick said something, garbled._ _

__"Two months?"_ _

__He nodded._ _

__"Can you talk a little game theory or-"_ _

__He gave her a long look, then very slowly and deliberately stuffed the rest of cake into his mouth. Michi pointed at him._ _

"I'm going to take that as a _no_."

__"No, he's good for it," Jen grinned. "Played the games, rage-quit during the second trying to beat ten-twenty mode, killed a perfectly good pair of headphones during the third and broke his monitor during the fourth."_ _

__Rick mumbled something else that Michi had no difficulty translating. He blamed Springtrap, and deservedly so, Michi was sure._ _

__"So imagine this actually was the game, and explain to me where we are in the timeline."_ _

__"Second game," Rick said when his mouth was clear. "The Bite of 87' never happened, and someone gave the old animatronics some love instead of scrapping them."_ _

Michi grinned. That was the _logical_ idea, after all. "I like it. Jen?"

"After the third," Jen grinned, ripping her cake into smaller pieces and rolling little balls of chocolate that she popped into her mouth. "Someone bought the Fazbear artifacts at auction and did things _right_ this time." Michi shared a smile with Rick and reached out to pinch Jen's cheek. Jen batted her hand away. "C'mon, Michi. This is what the place _should_ have been. Sunshine and rainbows and nothing hurts-"

__Michi felt herself staring and glanced away. She caught Rick's wry expression before he smoothed it over._ _

__"Okay," Jen admitted, "some things hurt, but that's life, right? Not everyone drinks alcohol for the joy of lower inhibitions, but-" then she stopped, grabbed the knife and banged the handle on the table like a gavel. "Sustained. The defense calls its next witness."_ _

__Michi laughed helplessly as Jen carried on._ _

__"Guard chat," she held both hands out to Rick, "from an actual guard. Thoughts?"_ _

__Rick was grinning at Jen lazily, appreciatively. Michi wondered both how long they'd known each other and why Rick hadn't asked Jen out yet. They were too familiar to be new acquaintances but despite where Rick worked, Jen would have introduced him to Michi if they'd been dating. Jen wouldn't be dancing with random guys, collecting numbers, if she'd had a boyfriend._ _

__"About what?"_ _

__"About," Jen pointed at Michi, who smirked, because they asked this of everyone. They'd jokingly started a poll as kids._ _

__"Why Schmidt actually stuck out all five nights."_ _

__"Game mechanic," Rick said, no hesitation. Michi held out a hand, Jen slapped it. That's what Michi had always said. That's what Jen had always agreed with. Then Jen gave Rick a little 'come on' gesture and a smile. Rick, to his credit, still didn't hesitate. "If this had actually been a thing? If some poor bastard had taken a job and kept going back, night after night, despite the walking animatronics? I figure the pay was better, the danger escalation was slower, and the instruction manual sure as hell didn't say anything about the possibility of bodily harm. The guard would have convinced himself he wasn't in danger, even if his instincts said otherwise."_ _

__"I always liked the theory that he was a private investigator," Jen said. "He was checking into phone-guy's death or something."_ _

__"He'd have gotten more info than he knew what to do with, if that's true," Rick said._ _

__Michi smiled at them, and smirked as someone approached their table. Speak of the devil. "Hey, Jeremy. Weigh in."_ _

__He looked at Michi, blinked as if surprised she was still here. "What?"_ _

__"Why do the guards come back night after night? Also, that cab you were calling for me-"_ _

__"It's a living," he said, deadpan, "and I figured it would have been here by now. I'll check." He turned back to Rick. "Watch the baby for a while."_ _

Michi's jaw dropped slightly. Of all the things she expected Jeremy to say, that wasn't it. After a moment of shock wore off, she was ready to give them _both_ a scathing lecture about bringing a baby into a _bar_ \- when Jeremy pulled a squirming little bundle out of the crook of his arm and handed Rick... a cupcake. An animatronic cupcake with eyes, squeaking happily as he was transferred to Rick's hands and....

__"He looks just like you?"_ _

__"It," Jeremy corrected. Then he turned and walked away. Jen cleared the table as Rick made funny faces at the baby. The baby... animatronic... cupcake._ _

__"It," Michi echoed weakly._ _

__"Gender neutrality," Rick said in a sweet voice, lowering the cupcake to the table. "Look who's over there," he said to it, pointing at Jen._ _

" _Hello,_ " Jen said, leaning close to the edge of the table and putting careful arms on either side of the cupcake, who squeaked and hopped in her direction. Michi knew that voice. Jen used that voice when her nieces visited. Michi used that voice every day. The _who's a sweet little baby? Is it you? I think it's you~_ voice. It was a baby... and Rick knew that. Jeremy had known that. _Jen_ knew that.

__It was the same cupcake from the dinner show, Michi knew._ _

__Because it was glaring at her._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [It's Been So Long](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk-aCL6eyGc) by The Living Tombstone  
> [Just An Attraction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWwbhQHjfTs) by TryHardNinja  
> [Stay Away From Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I56-XAACFHs) by NateWantsToBattle  
> [Not Here All Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi3ssgn_-WU) by DAGames


	6. Not Worth Analyzing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's still a family-owned pizzeria.

The cupcake went to Jen without hesitation. It was still glaring at Michi as Jen scooped it into a cuddle. 

"Now," Jen stroked a finger over one side of the cupcake's face, "remember what Chica said. She and the others were just teasing Michi. Chica didn't _really_ think Michi had eaten her friends."

The cupcake glared a little less, and let out a squeak that sounded _resentful_ before it scrunched closer to the surface of the table and hid its face in Jen's elbow.

"They're sentient," Michi murmured, staring at the cupcake. She glanced at Rick, but just as quickly back at the cupcake. It sounded happier, still hiding its face against Jen's arm and wriggling, cooing to itself as Jen stroked gently over its curve of rose-pink frosting. Rick was looking at Michi when she turned back to him, and he smiled calmly. 

"They _are_ ," Michi said. "Aren't they?"

"That's a secret," Rick said. 

"Then why do you know?" Michi looked at Jen, then at the cupcake, who quickly hid its face again. "Why do I know?" Michi watched the cupcake when neither Jen nor Rick answered her. The cupcake raised its head slowly, and Michi blinked. Her lips twitched. She grinned at it. "Peek-a-boo," she sing-songed. 

The cupcake squeaked and hid again. It giggled.

Michi covered her face with her hands. She couldn't believe it. Even while she'd been thinking it backstage. Even when she'd thought it while talking to Freddy, and Chi, and the cupcake was making interrogative noises. Michi bit back a whimper and swiftly uncovered her eyes.

"Peek-a-boo!" 

The cupcake hopped in place, squeaked its glee and bounced a few times before turning and face-planting into Jen's chin. The cupcake was unfazed. Of course it was. It was a baby... and an animatronic. Jen winced, but chuckled as she gathered the cupcake close for another cuddle. 

Michi opened her mouth. Then she noticed two women watching them with amusement... but also speculation. One of them had a very large purse.

She didn't see Jeremy. She doubted Rick was a bouncer. The other animatronics... nowhere to be found. Fuck. So Michi stood up and moved closer to Jen's shoulder, to the squeaking cupcake, smiling politely at the women as they approached. 

"Hi."

Rick took notice. He _had_ , actually, noticed when Michi went still. He shifted his legs from beneath the table so he could stand easily. 

The women blinked at Michi, then ignored her to coo at Jen.  
      
"What a _cute_ little cupcake!  Where can I get one?"  
      
Said cupcake blinked up at the women, then squeaked and burrowed into Jen's arms.  Yeah, smart baby, Michi thought. You know better.  
      
"Did you sign a waiver?" Michi asked. She was all polite smile and straight posture, never breaking eye contact.  The women blinked again. The one with the bag, at least, looked apprehensive.  "Because the animatronics aren't allowed to touch you until you have."  
      
The more aggressive of the two finally looked at her, scoffed.  "It's just a cupcake."  
      
Just a cupcake. Therefore it was harmless and that made things okay?  Except, no, actually, it was a baby and they were scaring it.  Michi kept smiling, jaw clenched now. She held her ground and shrugged.  
      
"I'm sorry, but Fazbear Entertainment would hold you liable for any and all damages-"  
      
"Do you think I give a fuck-" the aggressive one took a step forward, into Michi's space. 

This was not, Michi reflected, as bad as the time Kendra Webster's estranged father had walked into the backyard at the daycare and tried to take his daughter away with him. Mr. Webster wasn't on the list of people authorized to pick Kendra up. Michi had had to head the man off alone for the two minutes it had taken Julian to get the kids inside and tell Lena to call the police. Michi had been sweet, and polite, and wondering if she was about to learn how it felt to be punched in the face.

Mr. Webster had five more inches and a wider variety of four letter words than this woman. Michi wasn't impressed. This wasn't lost on her friend, who began to look more and more uncomfortable.  
      
"Deb," the uncertain one said, "let's just go.  I-"  
      
" _Any problems here, ladies_?"  
      
Michi wondered what Deb might have said... if Michi herself had any coherent response for Bonnie, faceless and one arm a mess of prehensile wires.  Deb's friend was already gone, twisting to look over her shoulder now and again.   
      
" _Oh_ ," his distorted voice rattled in an electronic chuckle, " _I beg your pardon if I've interrupted something.  Allow me to introduce myself-_ "  
      
Deb said nothing, backing away enough that she could get past Bonnie without any chance of touching him.

" _Was it something I said_?" he called after her.  He chuckled, then turned to Michi and saluted.  " _Good catch, Miss Chi._ "  
      
She stared at him, managed to nod as he pointed at her with one hand and one bundle of wire, and continued in the direction of the stage.  Bon had done that.  _He_ had called her Miss Chi to Balloon Boy.  What-  
      
" _What?_ " she shouted, thrusting a hand in his direction.  
      
"Here," Jen was saying, pulling her into a chair and handing her something that felt like silicone... and blinked against her arm. "Hold the baby."

Hold the baby. Sure, she could hold the baby. She held babies all the time. Michi took deep breaths. She rocked the cupcake gently and suspected she was calming herself more than the little animatronic. The frosting, as she brushed a hand over it, was slightly fuzzy, like moleskin.  She smiled and murmured sweetly to the cupcake as it blinked enormous pink eyes at her and squirmed into a comfortable position... and Michi decided it reminded her of a squat caterpillar.  She glanced around for Rick and didn't see him.  
      
"He went to tell Perry," Jen explained.  "He'll be back."  
      
"Jen." Michi sighed, sparing a moment to wonder who Perry was and deciding she didn't care. She sounded like she was whining. She didn't care about that either.  "What is this?  All of this?"  She kept her voice soft, even. She was still very aware of the little... and okay, as much as the idea had initially horrified her, she could see the parallels of it and it was kind of... sweet, really.  Was the cupcake really any worse off than a human infant?  They lacked mobility, had limited communication, and were dependant on the adults in their lives.  "Why- _why_ would they even trust us with a _baby_?"  
      
Jen leaned in to rub the cupcake on the side of its 'head', gently scritching the frosting. Her expression was gentle, earnest.  "Bonnie and Chica have been in the curtained area by the bar this whole time, and the animatronics have a really good sub-vocal communication system.  Even _if_ those women had somehow been able to grab the baby, they wouldn't have gotten out with it."  
      
That was... reassuring... and yet Michi was still pissed.  She tried to be generous as she considered the motivations of those women but... to say they thought the cupcake was 'just a robot' didn't make her feel any better.  Somewhere else, some other person might do the same to a small animal, or a human infant.

The cupcake _cooed_ softly, eyes closed, rubbing its head against her sleeve.  Michi stroked her free hand over the silicone body and felt the roll of mechanical components under the 'cupcake liner'.  
      
"I have a confession to make," Jen said.  
      
Michi sighed.  "You work here.  You got me in on your employee plus-one.  You didn't tell me ahead of time because I couldn't rule out a restaurant for your birthday if I didn't know it existed, and you didn't want me to build up any arguments or plan something else in advance.  You asked all your co-workers to pretend they didn't know you, so I wouldn't realize something was up and escape out the window earlier in the night."

"I didn't want you to come in with expectations," Jen explained. She wasn't surprised or dismayed that Michi had figured it out. Granted, Jen had been dropping enough clues that she clearly hoped Michi would work it out on her own.

Jen had participated in two songs. It wasn't impossible that Jen could have improvised the dancing in the first, but the set during _The Show Must Go On_ had been more complex. It had more than likely been rehearsed. The bodysuit she'd worn during the second had been her size. Michi seriously doubted they had a stack of _those_ lying around with the guard 'plums'. Jen would have had the bodysuit on under the guard uniform because no way had there been enough time for her to change between _Survive the Night_ and _The Show Must Go On_. 

Jen was still leaning close to Michi, murmuring over the cupcake. "This place is _everything_ you think it is and at the same time, _nothing like that_."  
      
"The Marionette's dangerous."  
      
"He's an animatronic, just like the rest of them," Jen demurred.  "Are you sure you're not scared of him just because the game character freaked you out?"  
      
"Bon stopped Beebee from taking me back to see the Marionette. Bon was worried about what he'd do.  _Beebee_ was worried."  
      
"They're kids," Jen said, "and Marionette's the scary uncle who has all the money.  He probably just wanted to do your interview and-"  
      
" _You_ -" the cupcake fussed and Michi lowered her voice, "you gave him my resume."  
      
"You are _literally_ perfect for this job.  Miich-"  
      
"I'm going to pass the cupcake to its mommy," Michi said. She stood up, not looking at Jen, not asking what job Jen was talking about. It occurred to Michi that maybe Chica wasn't the cupcake's mother.  Maybe animatronics didn't designate parents or siblings... but she needed to walk away right now, "maybe get some air." 

She did. Jen didn't try to call her back, and Michi didn't glance over her shoulder. She headed for the curtain Jen had indicated earlier- purple, heavy, and very much reminiscent of Pirate's Cove. There were several alcoves like this, some with low tables in front of couches, others had dining tables with chairs spaced around them. The curtains could be pulled back if the patrons wanted to watch the stage, or closed for privacy. There was a little sign in the front. One side read 'Sorry! Closed for repairs.' Michi was sure the other side said 'It's Me'. She huffed softly, petted a hand over the baby's head and hesitated when she heard giggling.

Bonnie and Chica were in there. Other people had been tasked with watching the cupcake. 

"Come in, Michi~" 

"I'm not sure I _want_ to~" she answered in the same tone. 

Outright laughter this time and the sound of footsteps. Chica opened one side of the curtain, smiling at her. Bonnie was seated on the sofa, snickering into one hand. He raised his eye-ridges at her.

"What? Busy place like this? It's hard to get a little alone time."

"These are not things I want to know about you," Michi said. Chica clucked- actually clucked- at her, taking the cupcake gently. 

"I think I'll put this little sweetie to bed. Back later, honey-bunny."

"I'll be waiting, lady-bird."

Michi waited until Chica had left. She spent the time glaring at Bonnie, who was smirking. She did not think about her performance in _Just Gold_ and how terrifying he'd been. His expression now was teasing, warm and playful, and Michi didn't think of the pwp fic she'd read back when, or any of the fan-art, or how the movies had actually made her shipping inclinations _worse_ , not _better_. She focused on something relevant to the moment.

"If you're _here_ , who is _that_?" She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at Withered Bonnie, singing with great ire at the motionless form of Bon, standing in the center of the stage.

" _My replacement is blue,_  
_it's got the latest tech too_ -"

"It's Bon, isn't it?"

Bonnie grinned wider, pleased at her answer. Michi stalked closer, incensed, throwing a hand towards the stage.

"What the _fuck_ am I seeing? He's being _punished_? For helping me? For-"

Bonnie took her hand, squeezing gently. "Calm down. This is the animatronic equivalent of that pink bunny suit from _A Christmas Story_." He let go of her and indicated the empty seat on the sofa, inviting her to sit.  
      
Michi opened and closed her mouth, unable to form words. Bonnie seemed to realize what he'd just said and started laughing. Michi could hear the couch creaking, despite the music, as he leaned back and continued to laugh. Michi's legs trembled. She turned to leave, stomach roiling- and he caught her forearm, pulling her inexorably down. His hand went from her arm to her shoulder, patting. 

"Seriously," he said, still chuckling, "calm down. Marionette told him to do this song, he did it voluntarily even if he whined about it on his way there. The other suit is fine, he'll go right back in it, he actually _likes_ this song; thinks it's funny. He just likes to complain about the Withered suit, primadonna that he is."

"I-"

Bonnie snickered. "Yanno he wasn't created with the vanity? That just kind of showed up. Maybe because he thought it was part of who people expected him to be, maybe because he got so used to being admired." He shrugged and turned to face Michi, dipping his head close before sitting up again. "But he's a good kid."

"You can switch?"

" _Just_ like you change clothes." He snorted. "Although we look a little different when _we're_ naked."

"And the... cupcake?"

"Oh sure," Bonnie said. "It's a little young yet, but it's already sentient. Thanks for being a good influence, by the way."

Influence? She'd held the cupcake for about five minutes. How was she an influence? She'd stood up for it when those women acted like creepers, but-

"We've wondered if the cupcakes prefer the shape they were most often exposed to. Chi spent a lot of time with Chica, Bon spent a lot of time with me. Even outside of the show, they tend to wear those suits. Beebee too, but we tried to be a little more varied in his interactions with people. You know, give him a wider range of experience."

Which perhaps explained why Jeremy had been watching it, and brought it over to say hello to the other humans.

"What about Mangle?" Michi found herself asking. She assumed Fred had interacted- imprinted, maybe- on Freddy. 

Bonnie grinned, a trifle wry. "Mangle was a surprise. It wasn't until the day Mangle said, right in the middle of practice, that it was tired of the cupcake and couldn't it have an endoskeleton like ours? that we realized it was even _aware_."

Michi stared at him. She had so many questions- too many- and started with the simplest. "What did you _say_?"

"'After the show, sweetie'." He grinned proudly. "You should have seen Mangle using limbs for the first time."

"The Toy bodies were-"

"Empty," Bonnie confirmed, nodding. "They were just suits that we planned to switch in and out of for the show. There were the six of us at first. Could all four original animatronics and all four Toys been on stage at the same time? No. But we had options."

They could have switched between groups, Michi mused. Had she been trying to write this show with only six performers, that's what she would have done. The first portion of the show could have featured the original animatronics, as it had. When they switched over at eleven pm, it would have simply been the Toys performing, and maybe the occasional appearance from Balloon Boy or the Marionette. Depending on the song, they might have been able to spare a performer now and again to play one of the withered animatronics. 

"Turned out, we didn't need to get creative." Bonnie smiled. "We weren't expecting the family to expand the way it did, but," he shrugged, "stranger things have happened."

Michi nodded faintly, trying not to think too hard. She had stumbled over an idea that she didn't want to acknowledge. She wanted to forget she'd even considered... 'six of us at first'. 

"The Toys were cupcakes," she murmured. "All of them?"

"Life starts at cupcake," Bonnie said. He chuckled briefly and shrugged. "We were working out the show. The games show Chica with a cupcake, so of course Marionette built her one. We figured the fans would be expecting it to be interactive. Gold wrote a program, Marionette turned it on. Five weeks later, 'hey there, cupcake'."

Michi said nothing. _The Marionette_ had built the cupcake. Gold, _Golden Freddy_ , had written the code for it. Did make them Mangle's parents? The mental image was strangely adorable... and so much easier to focus on than the fact that the Marionette had built the cupcake, maybe all of the endoskeletons, and Gold had programmed the cupcake. 

"The Toys," Michi said slowly, "are sentient AI that _you_ created."

"Yep." He laughed fondly in remembrance. "Once Mangle took over its suit, we made two more cupcakes. We didn't know what," Bonnie tilted his hand from side to side, unsure of how to phrase it, "'woke' Mangle up. We didn't know if it would happen again, but Chica didn't want them to be lonely, if they turned out the same." Bonnie's grin was wry. "Never again. Never two at once. Even with each other for company, they needed _our_ attention. Sometimes _competed_ for it, and I swear they became sentient faster. They were so much work."

Michi grinned. She'd heard the same, over and over, from the parents of twins.

"Bon was the angriest little cupcake. He wanted legs so badly, but I think Chi was the quickest. I remember her first word." He smiled at Michi, waiting for her to ask. She opened her mouth and out fell the question she'd tried to forget.

"Where did the rest of you come from?"

He said nothing, lips quirked in a sad little smile as he held her gaze. Michi was reminded of his expression earlier, when she'd identified Bon in the withered suit. Expectation. She knew the answer, Bonnie _knew_ that she knew it. He was waiting patiently for her to say it. Michi shook her head, because no she didn't. She didn't know the answer, she didn't want to know, and she hadn't even asked the question.

"What did Chi say?" 

He grinned. She'd seen new fathers smile like that, picking up their children at the end of the day, their joy and wonder that this tiny being was in their lives, doing amazing things.

"Wings." His gaze was far away, smile gentle. "'Oh', I said. 'Do you want to be like Chica?' and she said 'Yes! '," he smiled wider, "and then she said 'No! Wings!' I stared just long enough that she got frustrated. Her little eyes scrunched up and she _screamed_. I started to get upset, because she was upset. Then Marionette came and held her, shushed her. He said, 'Don't fret, my dear. If wings are what you wish, then you shall have them.' Toy Chica didn't have wings. We retrofitted the endoskeleton before she started wearing it."

Michi had noticed that, and wondered about it. "They're beautiful. _She's_ beautiful." They all were. Long-limbed, graceful, both human and animal; exactly what they were always meant to be. "But why the Fazbear characters? You could have built them anything-"

"It's always been a family-owned pizzeria," Bonnie said. 

Michi bit back a nervous giggle. He didn't look like he was joking. 

"But actually, we did. Anything they wanted. What you’re seeing right now is for the show.” He gestured to the stage. “These are just costumes until someone chooses to wear them," Bonnie shrugged. "We all choose who we want to be. Or sometimes, to become what other people have made of us."

"You're not going to let me get out of this, are you?" she breathed, trying to laugh instead of sob.

"If you didn't want to know the answer, you wouldn't have said something to Freddy earlier," Bonnie said philosophically. "It's easier for me to tell the story because I was first."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Bonnie Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVnafHgybvI) by Groundbreaking


	7. And It's Not Make-Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the length of time between this and the previous update. Life was not cooperating.
> 
> In other news, I'm starting to curse my frequent use of italics.

_Once upon a time, there was a boy. His father was gone. His mother had a great deal of love, but little money. Rather than stay home and watch him, she had to work. Rather than pay money for a sitter, she told him to play at the local pizzeria. When she was done with her day she would retrieve him and they would both go home._

_He was not the only child in such a situation. He formed a group of friends who also spent part of their lives in the pizzeria. A restaurant that was perhaps not as big or pretty as some, but it had games, and good food. To them, it became another sort of home. There was a band with animatronic characters, and employees who walked around wearing character suits. One evening, the boy stayed late into the evening rather than going home with his mother. He and his friends stood in the empty parking lot, just talking._

_One of the employees caught sight of them as he was locking up. He paused for a moment, then called them over. He'd seen them at the pizzeria day after day. Wasn't someone missing them at home? The boy traded looks with his friends, shrugged. The employee sighed. He looked sorry for them and stepped aside, holding the door open. He gestured inside, offering to turn the games on. But only for a few hours. They wouldn't want to run out of power, after all._

_The children jumped at the chance, never suspecting the man's true motives. They couldn't imagine that he had indeed noticed them, watched them closely, and waited for this exact opportunity._

_He led them into the back room, asking wouldn't they like to see the main power switch? He quelled any suspicion aroused by the lowering of the security gate, or the locking of the front door. They wouldn't want anyone to notice them there after-hours, now would they? They walked into the parts and service room, looking around... until the employee spoke, and the dim shine of the security lights reflected off the blade in his hand._

_"Now, children. Let's play a game."_

 

"Hide and seek," Bonnie said dispassionately. He spoke as if it had happened to someone else. "We'd go and hide. He would come and find us. If we stayed hidden until dawn, we won. If he found us..." Bonnie shrugged. He didn't look at Michi or the stage, his gaze caught somewhere in the distance.

Michi found it difficult to look at him as Bonnie continued in even tones. Anyone looking would have assumed he was fine, relaxing into the couch, purple arms lax against the arm rest at his side and the back cushion. They couldn't hear the story he told. Michi wished she couldn't. Eventually she had to watch the stage. Chica was singing, Chi, Gold and Mangle were dancing behind her. She could hear the song but she couldn't identify it. They were using a yellow-filtered spotlight and Mangle looked as golden as the other three animatronics.

"I was eight," Bonnie recalled with a self-deprecating smirk. "I thought I was big and tough. I rushed him, tried to grab the knife. The rest is... blurred. I was still in the pizzeria. We all were. I heard familiar voices. I was searching for something, but I don't remember that as much as... emotions. Then..." he glanced at Michi, gave her a somber smile. "One day I woke up."

There were no words. She barely had thoughts. The sofa creaked again. Her weight shifted unexpectedly as Bonnie moved closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. It was only then Michi realized she was crying.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay."

As if she were the one who needed comfort, not him. As if any failing or difficulty in her life could even _remotely_ compare with what he'd just told her. She gave over, turning her face toward his chest. Michi noticed the synthetics were still firm. She could feel the solid not-flesh under his coat, but Bonnie's chest had a slight bit of give to it, as if the 'older' animatronics had been built more cuddly. To ape the games? So they could hug children without injuring them? She didn't know. She didn't really care. It was simply an easier thought than what Bonnie had told her.

"Ask me what we did when we finally left the pizzeria."

Michi breathed in. It took two tries, but she managed to ask the question.

"We went to Disney World."

Michi sobbed into his chest. She wasn't sure if she was laughing or crying, cuddled in Bonnie's arms like a child, a robotic hand rubbing gentle circles over her back.

"You think I'm joking, but I'm not. We haunted Disney World. The Country Bear Jamboree glitching? All us."

She mumbled something about them _needing_ a vacation.

"Absolutely! Sometimes the Enchanted Tiki Room, the Haunted Mansion, obviously. Sometimes Pirates of the Caribbean- Foxy's favorite, by the way."

Michi laughed, and cried, harder.

 

"Not much of the games actually happened," Bonnie reassured.  Michi was burrowed against his side, head against the dewlap beneath his jaw (they had actually given the suit a dewlap).  She nodded.  
      
"Animatronic suits never worked like Springtrap."  
      
"Bright man, Scott.  Very creative.  Not too worried about history.  Actually, the third game was the closest to reality, but of course it _would_ be, the Marionette was nudging him _hard_ by that point."  
      
"Hallucinations?" Michi guessed.  A waitress had come by earlier to close the curtain (before Michi's outburst, not that she had noticed) and left a bottle of water.  Michi was slightly more calm than she had been and so long as Bonnie was acting like everything was okay, Michi could do the same.  Bonnie was nodding, and she backtracked in the conversation.  "Wait... you guys influenced third game?"  
      
"Second, third and fourth.  But Marionette's the one most responsible.  He and Gold have always been the better hackers."  
      
Michi shifted to look up at him and Bonnie grinned, twitched his ears.  

"Ghosts in the Machine."  
      
"That's _not_ what that means," Michi complained.   
      
"I know," Bonnie said dismissively, "I read Koestler in college.  But that's what we were."  He grinned.  "I _love_ computers."

"You... you went to college?" He said he'd been eight when he and the others- what, he'd gone as a ghost? They hacked computers? Michi grimaced, and the alcohol still in her system was perhaps the only thing keeping her from rejecting the entire concept out of hand. They'd gone to college? Or Bonnie, at least, had? 

"How.  _How_?  Were you just floating _nervous systems_?  I don't-" It was a ridiculous idea, but no more so than the fact that she was talking with a ghost, who inhabited a robot, who had contributed to the rearing of five sentient AI.  Normality had flown out the window and left her pulling her hair out of her eyes, wondering what had just happened.  
      
He chuckled appreciatively.  "Online course. Correspondence."  
      
" _Oh my god._ "

"Brilliant, right? I like to learn new things," he said. "Chica took cooking classes for her character, realized she liked them and got more serious about it. She takes over the kitchen on off-days, to practice. _Believe_ me," he said proudly, "pizza is the _least_ of her skill."

"Nice." Michi grinned. She couldn't help it. He had the dopey 'my girlfriend is so cool' smile on. "What about the others?"

"Well, robotics, computers and related fields for Gold and Marionette. Foxy studied up on psych and child-development when Mangle showed up. As for Freddy..." Bonnie shrugged. "He keeps busy, but he doesn't exactly share. I don't pry. Like I said, it's a challenge to get alone time around here. Privacy is hard, so we try to respect each other's as much as we can." He raised a single finger, waggling it in the air. "But the thing I _do_ know, you've already seen."

Michi stared at Bonnie. What had she seen that Bonnie hadn't attributed to someone else? Then it occurred to her. "The show. He wrote the show." Then her mind caught up with her mouth and she said it again, more shrill. " _He wrote the show?_ "

"We've had a little input on the creative process," Bonnie said. "But yes."

"Holy shit," Michi whispered. 

"He'll be the first to admit that it could use some work," Bonnie continued, ignoring her astonishment. "As much research as he's done- and we've banned him from putting _REPO: The Genetic Opera_ on the stage screens ever again. Disassembly was threatened."

Michi stared at him mutely... but she didn't think she could deal with that musical played over and over either. Bonnie gave her a tragic look.

"You don't know how many times he watched it! Anyway, Marionette wanted another perspective for Freddy and Rick to bounce ideas off of, so here you are."

Michi stared at him for a moment, collecting her thoughts.  Nope.  None.  She had none.  She opened her mouth, because Bonnie was clearly waiting for a reaction.  
      
"'Zydrate comes in a little glass vial'-"  
      
Bonnie let out a startled laugh, then mock-glared.  "Don't you sass me, young lady."

"I..." No.  She still didn't have anything.  Jen had given the Marionette her resume for a job writing and directing... for the Fazband.  If someone had told her ten years ago that this would be possible, she would have screamed high enough to crack glass. The next five years would have been spent hoping it would happen... and the five years after that Michi would have carefully avoided any spontaneity that involved Jen and restaurants. "I feel like I'm a little insane... right now."  
      
"You get used to that," Bonnie deadpanned.  "Your sanity is certainly in more danger than your eyeballs. We don't stuff anyone into suits... not permanently, anyway."  
      
"Not even the Marionette?" Michi wondered if Bonnie was lying to make her feel better.  She looked at him, and tried to take comfort in his irritated expression.  
      
"He thinks it's a mark of status to be... what we are. It's something you have to earn. He's uh..." Bonnie grimaced, "got a superiority complex."  
      
"Oh," Michi chirped, " _great_.  Now I like him even _better_."

 

Michi left the curtained area with another bottle of water and Bonnie wishing her luck; either to have a bad interview or a good one. Whichever way she hoped it went. 

She knew she was flagging. She wanted to get this over with, find Jen, and go home to sleep. It was three in the morning and she'd had more than enough emotional turmoil for a day she _hadn't_ been planning to stay up all night, much less this one. At least it was Saturday now.

Jeremy watched her approach the doors, nodded a greeting. Michi returned it, pushed a door open and went inside. Then she realized she did not _actually_ know where she was supposed to be going. There was only the one hallway. The first door was several feet down the hall on the left and led to the green room. She would have thought there should be an office... but maybe the green room was used as an office. The pizzeria wasn't lacking in space, but if Michi was right about her performance in _Just Gold_ being a pseudo-audition, the green room might serve double duty as pseudo-office and animatronics lounge. They weren't exactly operating by traditional rules here. 

She could also, Michi considered as she got to the doorway, ask Fred. He was seated on one of the couches, holding an electronic tablet and oblivious to her presence until Michi spoke up.

"Ah... hi."

He flinched and clutched the tablet close to his chest. Michi's caretaker instincts wondered suspiciously what he was looking at, but she smiled and tried to relax, so _he_ would relax. He looked oddly small sitting in the center of the sofa, clutching an e-book and staring at her, wide-eyed.

"I've got an interview with the Marionette." At least, she supposed she did. Certainly everyone else had known about it. "But I don't know where to meet with him." Fred looked even more nervous at that. Michi she smiled with self-deprecation and lowered her voice, confiding in him. "I might even be late. Beebee was guiding me back, but I-"

"Bon didn't know," he said, a trifle defensively. "Most of you do the interviews with the _human_ relations manager."

Ah. Now Michi felt like _she'd_ done something wrong. Still, she nodded easily. "I didn't know, myself. Bon was just trying to help." He'd alarmed her and prolonged the insanity, but she could accept that he had been well-intentioned.

Fred seemed to calm, and went back to the tablet. "The waitresses and most of the bouncers don't meet him. You're here for the director job."

Well then. Fred indeed knew more than she had. Par for the course. Michi stepped further into the room, aware that Fred was sitting very still. Animatronics might be different, but he seemed like a wary child, confronted with an unfamiliar adult and unsure how to react. She stepped up to a chair, out of his proximity but in his line of sight.

"Can I just wait here?"

Fred shrugged, glancing at her before focusing entirely on the e-book. Michi sat. She didn't watch him, but his posture made it obvious that he was paying attention to her. The defensive coil of his limbs stayed tight. He only pretended to focus on the tablet.

Mangle was the eldest... Bonnie hadn't said their exact order of birth. ...Maybe creation was more accurate. Michi would have thought Fred should be the eldest, having the role he did. She had observed the kids at the daycare over and over. The eldest of a group _tended_ toward leadership. But not always. The lead singer of a band was _often_ the creative genius and the one who made the decisions. But not always. 

She remembered Joe saying that Toy Freddy had been the last to show up. Had it taken that long for one of the cupcakes to _want_ that job? Had he accepted it because the other rolls were filled? Had the spirits nudged him into it? The conversation she'd had with Bonnie put emphasis on choice, not design. Technically... Freddy was the leader of the band. Fred may have been the lead singer among the toys but-

Michi didn't know. She wasn't even sure where she was going with the line of thought, really. She just knew she was here, trying to piece together the dynamics of the group she'd only just met. All she really knew were the games, and fan speculation. If _half_ of those theories applied to the real animatronics, she'd eat Freddy's hat. The spirits hadn't gotten involved until after the creation of the first game.

She remembered an interview Scott Cawthon had done with IGM. He had taken the idea of a terrifying animatronic animal and run like Foxy to the security office. It had been more speculated by the fans than implied by the designer that inspiration had come from an _actual_ restaurant where children had been lured into a back room and murdered. But the interviewer had asked what Cawthon planned to work on next and the response had been, _"I can't answer that. He's listening..."_

Apparently he hadn't been making a clever and enigmatic joke about the creative process. Cawthon had grabbed the attention of restless spirits and she was sitting in the result. 

"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" 

Michi looked at Fred, hunched miserably on the couch. She didn't know what he was asking. Tell who, what? Tell people that the games were real but not actually? Who the hell would believe her?

"Marionette said scientists would come and take us away-" 

"No," she said quickly, leaning forward in her chair. She would have gotten up, sat next to him. But he was a little boy, already frightened, and she was the monster under the bed. "No, I won't tell anyone."

"Aye, Miss Michi's a right proper lass. Miss Jenny vouched for her good character, and ye know we c'n trust Miss Jenny."

Michi smiled at Foxy, wondering if the Pirate brogue was fully genuine.... Also, no one had ever, _ever_ called her friend 'Jenny' before. That seemed to calm Fred where Michi couldn't. Foxy came down the stairs from the stage door.

"You're up, lad."

Fred grinned and scrambled eagerly from the couch. He shoved the e-book at Foxy as they passed one another. Foxy patted him on the back, his hook nestled in a sleeve on the back of the tablet. Fred disappeared through the stage door and Foxy looked at Michi.

"Don't mind him, lass." He tilted the tablet. "Too much Asimof. He's young yet. Humans like ye make 'im nervous." 

"No, I get that." Michi watched him tap the device for a moment, then power it down and set it on the table. “It’s a dangerous world when you’re _ordinary_.” Foxy gave her an appreciative smirk and Michi smiled briefly. "Is that why you didn't play up the fact that it's his first concert?" 

"Aye."

Michi nodded, cleared her throat softly and decided to bite the bullet. "I'm supposed to meet the Marionette for my job interview, but I don't actually know where-"

"That y'are," Foxy nodded. "But 'tis not the most hospitable port to drop anchor. Ye'll be wantin' te wait until he sends young Beebee to bring ye to 'im."

Michi grimaced. "Yeah... he already did that, and Bon stepped in. He might have scared Beebee a little, made him worry what would happen to me during the interview."

Foxy growled softly, then shook his head. "Lads." He shrugged, as if to ask 'what could you do'? "But our Marionette be particular about visitors, and I suggest ye be waitin' all the same."

Michi knew he was right, and she was willing to follow his advice. She was also more than willing to walk out the door. She'd have preferred to get the cab that never arrived, forget most of the night had ever happened and explain her rudeness to Jen after a few hours of sleep. 

She hadn't actually applied for the job in the first place, and what, exactly, was keeping her here? It wasn't as if the games were valid. Michi wasn't being paid, she wasn't obligated. They wouldn't stuff her into a suit (again). But it had been made clear more than once over the course of the night, that there was a power imbalance here. The pizzeria didn't operate by normal rules, and she wasn't aware of half of them. Those she thought she knew, she'd probably fooled herself into believing. All that aside, Jen worked here and Michi didn't want to cause trouble for her. 

"What is this, really?" she asked. She knew why she was really staying. Curiosity. Wanting to know more than she wanted to stay ignorant and happy that way. She'd fallen into the rabbit hole and rather than clawing her way back out, she wanted to follow it through to the other side, wherever that led... hopefully not to her mentioning that thought to Bon and him coming up with jokes about the 'rabbit hole'. Because she could hear him saying it in her head. "It's a cover, right? I mean- when the game was written, it wasn't actually written about _you_. Scott Cawthon didn't write the characters _for_ you... did he?"

"Na," Foxy said, smirking. "T'was Marionette's idea to have it for ourselves. T'weren't the first plan suggested, but t'was the one we'd come back to again and again." He shrugged. “We needed new lives, and these characters, the pizzeria... felt like they belonged to us.”

"How did you decide who should be who? Did you like pirates before-"

"Come now, lass," he said, still grinning. "Marionette had naw't the time t' ask what we thought 'o the plan before Bonnie spoke 'is peace. 'Dibs on the rabbit,' said he, and we n'er disagreed. Amongst the rest of us, particular characters... seemed to suit. Meself, well," he chuckled. "What little diddna' want te be a pirate, one time or t'other?"

"Do they know?" Michi asked, glancing at the stage door. "Do the kids know?"

Foxy looked somber, tapping furred fingers over his hook. "Methinks they suspect, but... the details d'not make a pretty story. When they're old enough t'ask the question... we'll try t'be old enough t' answer." Foxy glanced at the hall door a moment before Mangle popped its heads in. Foxy nodded.

" _I'm supposed to take you back to the office. _"__

Michi jumped, glanced at Foxy for a moment before turning back to Mangle. Its voice was static, slightly garbled and distorted, but comprehensible. Michi stood. She assumed that Mangle was doing the same as Foxy- maybe it was staying in character. Maybe Mangle liked it. The skull grinned at Michi as mischievously as the fox-shaped head did. Were there two personalities? The animatronics had spoken of Mangle in the singular, but two heads-

"One last thing," Foxy said. 

Michi turned. She didn't like the ominous tone... and the grim resignation on his face didn't make her feel any better.

"What Marionette's askin' ye to do, lass." He grimaced, lip curling over sharp teeth... and as intimidating as it looked, she didn't feel threatened. "We'll not hold it 'gainst ye."

Michi was going to ask. She _wanted_ to ask, but Foxy turned and moved too fast for her eyes to track, back up the stairs and into the wings. When she turned around, Mangle was upside down, clinging to the door frame and the hall ceiling. Michi yelped, but started to smile at Mangle's giggle.

" _The others wish they were as cool as I am,_ " it started to walk away, backward, clawed feet clinging to the cross-beams in the drop ceiling.

"Those have to be reinforced," Michi muttered, following.

" _After I broke the ceiling the first five times-_ "

" _Five_? Are you kidding?"

Mangle smiled wider and the skull head shook in answer to Michi's question. " _Marionette likes this as well._ " The fox head pouted and the skull heaved an electronic sigh. " _Not allowed to do it above the dancers._ "

"Well," Michi reasoned, "that ceiling isn't as low... not as much impact-"

" _If I'm not on their level,_ " Mangle's skull said. " _Yeah, I can see that- fun for some of the musical numbers though._ "

"You could use the wires that the Marionette uses, right?" 

" _They make Fred nervous. I'm working on that. This helps,_ " Mangle gestured to where it was currently, turning a corner and leading Michi down the hall. 

"I would hope so... and I hope I didn't do anything that made him more nervous earlier- I noticed he was watching after _Just Gold_ -"

" _Don't worry about it. He's a little paranoid but it's mostly because he's young and inexperienced... he shouldn't even_ be _in the show, but he begged the first generation to let him sing. In a few months, Gold will let him play in the computers and he'll realize how easy it would be to get away if someone actually got his suit._ "

"Why? How would you-" and Michi begged inwardly that the explanation wouldn't involve dismemberment.

" _Oh we just hop right out. But how is only for animatronics to know_." Mangle winked, tapped a finger to both of its noses. " _We've told Fred how easy it is, and shown him. He's not going to believe us until he's done it. He just knows what he's heard from Marionette and popular fiction_." Mangle made a sound of disgust. " _I mean okay, Marionette is protective because someone hurt him when he was Fred's age and he's cautious out of concern for us, but the scare tactics are a little overdone_."

Truer words had never been spoken and Michi tried not to burst out laughing. It was only funny because people had said similar of the video games when they first came out, and she found it sobering to consider the Marionette in that light. If fan speculation was correct... the Marionette had been present during the other murders. He had been watching, powerless to help, and his vengeance all the worse for having to bear witness. What surprised her was not his protectiveness but rather that the rest of the spirits weren't just as bad... but Mangle was still talking, now about popular robot media.

" _Don't get me started on that movie_ Chappie. _Fred's too young to be watching any of it_. Short Circuit _was bad enough and it was comparatively tame_." 

"How about _Wall-E_?"

" _Fred got upset when Wall-E got electrocuted and stopped watching. We told him the ending, but he wouldn't watch the rest of the film._ "

"How old is he?"

" _Six months_."

Holy shit. Six months for an AI, equivalent to grade-school age. Baby bear. Michi still had a Freddy Fazbear plushie she'd bought on Etsy years ago and it was the foremost image in mind right now. Mangle looked at her astonished expression, grinned. 

" _He just had to sing_ ," it said fondly. 

"He does a wonderful job," Michi said. The larger portion of her brain was appalled, throwing up protests of child labor laws and were they being treated correctly, but working farms had a task for everyone, and she knew of circus shows and Broadway performances that involved children younger than Fred had appeared to be. She thanked God that she hadn't seen him mingling with the crowd. The other toys seemed mature enough to roll with off-color jokes, but the idea of someone referencing _Five Nights at Fuckboy's_ to Fred? No. Just, no. 

"Mangle..." Michi blinked. "Is that actually your name or is it just... when you're in the show? I-"

" _That's a secret,_ " but both Mangle's heads were still grinning. It was still walking across the ceiling, easy as you please. 

"Sorry. Do you know why I'm... allowed to know this?" 

It shrugged. " _Marionette tells anyone that works with us directly. Here we are_ ," it opened a door with one dainty robotic finger in the upper corner. Michi ducked slightly to walk under its heads. Mangle patted Michi on the shoulder as she went. 

"Any advice?" 

Mangle flicked on the lights for her. The Marionette didn't seem to be in the room, but that was absolutely no comfort. The office looked like the prize counter. It was a goddamn _replica_ of the prize counter, complete with enormous gift box, closed and beribboned, and a familiar melody playing.

" _No. You know what do to._ " Mangle gave her a sinister grin, impressive, enough to make Michi shiver. Then Mangle giggled at her and leaned out of the door, pulling it closed. 

Michi looked around, glanced upward to make certain the Marionette _wasn't_ actually there and watching her... he could be in the box but she had no desire to open it and find out. She wandered over to the stuffed animals... there were some of each animatronic, with little price tags. Michi wondered if these were the excess. The pizzeria had to have a gift shop. Now that she thought of it, Michi remembered that she and Jen had walked through it on their way in. The stuffed animals were adorable. The endoskeleton figurines were less so, but well made in their own right. There was a small wooden box at the end of the counter. 

Oh, she knew what she was looking at. She had fond memories of her mother's old music box and singing along with _Masquerade_. But she'd found it frustrating that the music was rarely at the right speed. Not to mention that the dancing harlequin figurine made her nervous, because her pretty pedestal had sat off-center on the rotating base. Her little porcelain hands would strike the spines of books, or the base would spin precariously over the edge of the shelf. When Michi received her own as a Christmas gift, it was a box. A lovely, old-fashioned, very simple box.

Just like this one. 

The attention to detail wasn't funny, not remotely... but the crank was spinning. The music was slowing down... and apparently the music box was an actual music box, actually playing _My Grandfather's Clock_. 

She lunged for it and twisted the crank. Then she sat in a nearby chair and eyed the thing nervously.

Not funny. Not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, that [IGM interview](http://indiegamemag.com/igm-interviews-scott-cawthon-five-nights-at-freddys/) was a real thing, and Cawthon really did say that. :3 Creepy, huh?
> 
> [Five Nights at F***boy's](http://gamejolt.com/games/five-nights-at-f-boy-s-final-mix/53422). Game responsibly, everyone~ :D


	8. The Guilty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the tags but it bears repeating: Warning for graphic descriptions of violence toward children.
> 
>  
> 
> It's not a pretty story, but the Marionette believes in sharing.

Michi tried to stay awake. This was the last place she should fall asleep and she knew it. The problem was that her body needed a rest, and her mind needed an escape. When the Marionette hadn't shown up after ten minutes she started to relax. Michi wound the music box when it slowed down, got comfortable in the chair, and let the near-silent serenity of being away from the main rooms get to her. She closed her eyes to rest them, just for a moment.

 

_He went to the boy, the bold one, and drew him close as the others stood before the monster. They looked with incomprehension at their fallen friend, at the blood on the knife._

_-Shh. You're safe now.-_

_The pain of death was in drawing it out. If you were allowed the chance to escape, if you were led to believe in the possibility of survival; that was the cruelty. That was the torture. He remembered the pain of the knife and oh, that had been a short, sweet agony compared with running, and hiding, and believing he might go home again._

_-Sleep.- He soothed the boy into a deeper state of disconnection, too deep to hear the inevitable screams, and left him among the Lines. He only wished he could do the same for the others. He wanted to warn them. He wanted to help them escape._

_More than that he wanted to take their tormentor and make him hurt. He wanted power over the one who had betrayed the sanctuary this place had been, and visit upon him every horror he had committed. Every horror he would soon commit._

_The others trembled, they wept. When they saw that their pleas did nothing to arouse sympathy in their captor, they ran, and they hid._

_The game began._

_He bore witness._

 

Michi flinched awake, jerked against the chair and looked around. She wasn't in parts and services, she was... in the Marionette's office. The music box was silent.

"Are you expecting a prize?"

She sucked in a breath, twisting to look at the counter. 

His elbows rested on the edge of the open gift box. His long and pointed fingers were interlaced. He rested the chin of his mask upon them... and the mouth still gaped, but there was movement at the edges, the slightest suggestion of cheeks to indicate a deepening smile. 

Michi swallowed. "No. I... apologize for my behavior earlier. I didn't know that you were waiting to meet with me."

"Understandable. Our secrets are closely guarded to preserve our security, but the children are not practiced at misdirection. You may have noticed."

Michi smiled faintly. "I did, yes."

"I instructed her, when Jennifer began her employment with us, to refrain from bringing friends and family here for that reason."

Which made a lot of sense in retrospect. The kids already knew Jen. They might not remember to pretend they didn't. If Michi was being clued in, it wasn't a big deal. But if Jen had brought her to the pizzeria weeks ago, brought her _back_ for subsequent visits? Eventually someone was going to slip up. Michi couldn't be around if she was a potential breach in security.

"She didn't tell me anything," she hastened to assure him.

"No, she's a good girl," the Marionette said, dipping his head so his spindly fingers rested before his wide mouth. "But better to avoid confusion until you had been properly vetted. Those who are close to our employees tend to become close to us, and thus by necessity work and home-lives are kept separate in the case of our human counterparts."

Michi... wasn't too thrilled with that word. She wasn't too thrilled with the conversation, even though she'd met directors who were worse than the Marionette as far as creep factor. He'd been entirely polite, but she was still looking for the wolf hiding under the lambskin and since no one _else_ had snarled at her-

"But for the inaugural 'Survive the Night' performance," he continued, "she requested permission for your attendance and recommended you for a role."

"You don't always go until 6am?" Michi swore that he smiled wider at that. 

"Oh, we _do_. But rarely do we have guests. Tonight's repertoire may be repeated... ideally, a few times each month. It will depend on how the results are tallied, what my colleagues think. Generally hours of operation are 11am to 2am."

Yes, she had thought that was weird. Appropriate for the theme, but weird. The implications of repeating the concert, however, concerned her. "I understand," Michi said slowly, "how you could 'spontaneously' put me in one of the songs. You had my resume, so you knew I had performance experience. I don't see how you can have random people participate in songs with the same difficulty." 

"Your performance in _Just Gold_ was indeed a test, one of several presented to you this evening, and suitably challenging. But we have so many pieces. It will be simple enough to tailor the participation to the guest, or simply involve them during the dinner show." He tilted his head to the side coyly. "Have them shake some maracas." 

Oh god. There was the creep-out. There was also her wondering how good the Marionette's hearing was or were they just 'in the wires' throughout the building, spying? Why did they even have bouncers? No, actually she knew why. They had bouncers because of the waivers, and because no one should actually know that these were substantially built animatronic forms made of metal and synthetics and not simple costumes as Michi was sure _some_ of the patrons had convinced themselves. 

Had he been listening to everything? Was she, in fact, going to get scolded for upsetting Freddy? She could take the latter. She hoped the former might have ousted her from actually getting this job. Michi skirted around that thought and back to the point of the conversation.

"The audience participation is usually just audience participation?" she murmured.

"The chance to be chosen, after all, will draw customers," he said with a nod. 

"And drive others away," Michi pointed out.

The Marionette shrugged. "In any event, you've performed admirably, and my colleagues have no complaints. I look forward to tonight's final number."

"I... what?" What final number? She hadn't agreed to anything but he was talking like she had already accepted the job.

"Having the librettist involved, as well as playing a role, should ensure that the production goes smoothly-"

"Did you _look that word up_?" Michi snapped, startled and... honestly, not caring in that moment whether she sounded rude or how the Marionette would react. She needed to make him _stop_. "I don't _actually_ want to work for you."

The Marionette was perfectly still, and still perfectly amused. "But _I_ want you to work for me."

"Why?" For what possible reason? Sure, Jen's recommendation would have gone a long way, the connection between them would reassure the animatronics that Michi was trustworthy. But there had to be other people. People who would actually want to work here. "There are better singers, more practiced-"

"Because you're _responsible_."  There was a taunting edge to his voice, and something underneath that. Sharp and threatening, light reflected off the edge of a knife. 

Michi couldn't ask for what.  She didn't have to.  Out of his box the Marionette drew a slim paper binder.  She recognized the title, and her old username on the cover. Michi stared. Her face grew hot. Her spine tingled with the beginnings of panic and she felt what she had on stage; the visceral, overwhelming urge to run.  
      
"I didn't know," she whispered.  
      
"And you were happier that way," the Marionette agreed.  "As are all the rest.  Happier, not truly believing.  Not knowing.  Terrible things happen but they are far from you, out of your sight, past your sphere of influence. Not your responsibility."  
      
Michi swallowed around the knot in her throat. She gripped the edge of her chair, trying not to look at him or the binder.   
      
"Oh," the Marionette hummed, "you're angry with me.  Your reality has been utterly destroyed and you're foundering on the broken wreckage that was the world you thought you knew." He leaned forward slightly and his mocking disdain was clear as he continued. "I know _just how you feel_. But children must be told why their actions were bad, or they'll never learn to behave better."

She wasn't angry. Not really. Michi burned. Shame made her chest tight, her mouth water and Michi breathed slowly. She might actually throw up this time, and she could only imagine the response he'd have to that. 

"I want a final number that will bring down the house," he said, nonchalant, back in good spirits. "I want something that will bring the patrons back with alarming regularity. I want something they will be unable to forget. Congratulations. You've written the stage direction, and you'll be performing."

"But this will-"

"The others have rehearsed in preparation of tonight's performance. While you have not, I could not, in truth, wait any longer. Still, I am sure you'll do us all proud."

"No," Michi said, jaw clenched. "I _won't_ -" She couldn't, because she didn't have the right. Maybe the other songs were safe, because they'd never happened. Because the original Freddy Fazbear had been a video game character and whatever tragedy surrounded him was fictional. The song the Marionette wanted, the stage-direction Michi had written, was simpler, and true.

The Marionette gazed at her. He rose as far as his arms, at furthest extension, could push him, keeping his hands coiled over the edge of the box. He dropped the script. Michi didn't hear it hit the bottom of the box, and wondered wildly if it had a bottom. The Marionette loomed over Michi like the specter of death and pain she thought he was.

Then he delivered both.

"Bonnie," he said, slowly, contemplatively, "was the first. He tried to take the knife. Instead, it laid him open along the forearm. He bled out. It happened so quickly that it left the murderer unsatisfied, and he drew out the rest.

"He found Chica in the kitchen when her arm brushed a pan and it clattered to the floor. He ran her down and pushed her into a row of ovens. The blow to her head disoriented her. First, he put her hands in a drawer, and slammed it shut, breaking both wrists. When she screamed, he broke her jaw. She sobbed for her mother as he dragged her through the halls, and died of blood loss before he returned her to parts and services."

She had seen them in her dream. Maybe it hadn't been a dream at all but some kind of hallucination. How long had she been asleep with the Marionette watching her? She had seen them all, terrified, uncomprehending before the bastard who had waited for weeks, and planned how to kill them. 

They could have been any children. They could have been the ones she watched over, the ones she loved. They would have had parents somewhere, and siblings. They'd had lives, and some bastard had broken them with no more compassion than a cruel child had for dolls.

Michi bit back a whimper as the Marionette wrapped fingers about her wrist, forcing her hand away from her mouth so he could listen to her shuddering breath. She kept her head bowed. Tears fell onto her jeans as the silence stretched. His fingers tightened.

"It took several passes with the knife before he severed Foxy's wrist."

She sobbed as if he had torn the sound, broken, from her throat.

"He could run," the Marionette continued, "he could run so fast, but the monster heard his feet pounding and caught him fumbling with the locks at the front door. Foxy tried to claw at the monster's face, and was punished for it. Before he bled out at the wrist, the monster sliced into him again and again, smiling, as Foxy begged him to stop. 

"Gold hid. She was so very good at hiding. She squeezed herself into a space too small for him to follow, between the arcade games. She was determined to wait him out. He saw her, stared. He knew he could not climb in and grab her- she would be gone, out the other side, while he fought the machines. He pushed one of them over, and watched as she suffocated, crushed of breath, unable to scream."

Michi shook her head. She shouldn't be hearing this. She didn't want to be hearing this. 

"I assure you," he murmured, "that is how it happened."

"You shouldn't be telling me this," she whispered.

"Why not? I was there. It is my story."

But as traumatic as it must have been for him to witness, it hadn't been his death. Michi cried helplessly, for them, hunted down one by one in a place they had loved. She cried for the spirit the Marionette had been, who had watched it all and been unable to do anything. But it was still wrong. The secrets weren't his to offer. Bonnie had only given Michi details about his _own_ death. Michi pushed herself deeper into the chair back, away from the Marionette, and tried to pull out of his grip. He only extended his arm, leaned down as Michi pulled her captured wrist closer to her chest. 

"Freddy was the last, after listening to the others die. He hid beneath the desk in the security office, the horror of it frozen in his lovely eyes, knowing he was next. He could not even move from that place when the screaming stopped, when no one came for him.

"It was only at dawn that he crawled from his hiding place and found that the monster had not forgotten him after all. He had been lying in wait, just outside the door. Still, Freddy did not cry when he was thrown to the ground, and stabbed through the heart. He only _screamed_."

Michi wanted she could forget that she'd had the chance, more than once, to leave. They could have been done at dinner. Jen had asked if she wanted to go after _Just Gold_. Michi had chosen to stay. She'd chosen to be here, and talk to Bonnie, and be present for this farce of a job interview. She had no one but herself to blame.

The Marionette opened his hand and waited patiently for Michi to pull away before lifting it, then petting her hair as if she were a distressed child.

"You are my favorites, you and Perry. Your curiosity drives you in, deeper and deeper, until the truth of this place closes you inside and there you are- your own finger on the button that closes the doors." 

Fingers stroked her hair back over her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear. Michi shuddered.

"There is no walking away from this. There are no pretty stories to lessen the horror of what happened to us. There is only your obligation to make it better. Because now you know them. Now you care."

"Like you do," she whispered, too drained to muster the sarcasm she wanted. 

"So glad to have you on board, Michelle," he said sweetly. "I _had_ hoped." 

She jerked her head to the side, disgusted, but he only followed.

"Do you know why you are afraid right now? It's not because you think I'll kill you. Oh, I could. I am capable. But I won't. You know that, and you know why that is."

She didn't answer. Yes, she knew. She knew that he didn't have to. There was no fear, no threat, stronger than her revulsion for what had happened to six children who had not, in fact, been fictitious. She held no responsibility for the actions of their murderer, but she had compassion. That was enough. 

She'd had the sneaking suspicion in the back of her mind that somewhere, some time, this had been real. She had been right all along, seeking confirmation against her better judgment. Faced with that knowledge, she couldn't turn away. She couldn't knowingly endanger them, or forget what she had learned. The Marionette pressed fingers to her chin, tipping her face upward. She blinked tears out of her eyes in the dim light and tried to breathe evenly.

"That inexplicable dread you've felt all your life," he murmured. "That which caused you to walk away from communities, and jobs, and lovers? That nameless thing you have been expecting, from which there is no escape? It's this. It's us." He leaned close, resting the cheek of his mask against her face to whisper in her ear. " _It's me._ "

She knew. She had known, but she had hoped that when fate finally caught up with her, she would recognize the choice as she was making it.

"But you mustn't fret," he said, drawing back into his box. "'It's a fantastical paradise, and it's not make-believe'."

"How did you do this?" she muttered, wiping at her face with shaking fingers.  "Did you appear to Scott Cawthon on his computer screen and say 'build me an army worthy of Freddy'?"  
      
"Ooh," The Marionette tilted his mask back and forth on his crossed arms, retrieving the script and holding it out to her, "a pop culture joke more than twenty years old.  How droll."   
      
"You can't."  Michi felt the hair on her arms rise.  She knew she shouldn't be saying it. She shouldn't be arguing with him. But he'd already pulled her heart out and _squeezed_ until she could feel it bleeding. She didn't want to do the same. "You can't- _give_ this to us. It's _theirs_.  They should be the ones to-"  
      
Michi sat up straight, head hitting the back of the chair as the Marionette _flowed_ out of the box and into the space between them. His hands gripped the corners of the headrest, face hovering before hers.   
      
"Tell me," he murmured, "what I should do.  Hmm?"      
      
She kept silent, trying not to breathe, feeling the pages of the script scratch faintly against her cheek. Michi stared at his right eye socket, just to the side of the pinpoint of light. She couldn't look away.   
      
"You see, you fleshy sacks of blood and viscera have that persistent little concept called a _soul_.  You think this soul conforms to the shape you had in life. You expect, when something represents a ’soul’, to see something that resembles yourselves.  _I_ know better."  

Fingers like ice-picks pressed the script against her chest as the Marionette drew back.  "But _because_ I know better, I know to give the audience what it wants.  So I'm going to give them _you_ , and you're going to give them _this_ ," the hand at her chest pushed harder, and Michi pulled a hand off the arm rest to take the script.  
      
"I haven't-" She had to swallow, pause, and breathe in as the Marionette tilted his head at her. "I'll be doing this cold.  I've never... I don't know what you expect-"  
      
"I expect you to do what you plainly wished to do when you wrote it in the first place.  What you _did_ in that charming little video hidden under the Youtube privacy setting."  He drew back into his box, but Michi only sat, pulse racing, hoping the threat would pass her by if she kept still long enough.  "I expect you to make all proud, _Miss Chi_."  One hand curled over the lid of the box, the other waggled fingers at her.  "And _do_ remember to smile.  You _are_ the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."


	9. Your Place Among the Others

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dress rehearsal. For our final song of the night, the roles of Foxy, Bonnie and Freddy will be played by...

The door opened and Jeremy came in.  Michi allowed the hand under her elbow, his arm guiding her out of the office. She concentrated very hard on keeping her grip on the binder. If she didn't, she'd fling it away from herself in a fit of disgust. She could see the reaction now- imagine the Marionette demanding she pick it up the same way she would scold an over-tired four-year-old. She could wait. She had to wait to react until she was further away. Michi thought about Jeremy instead. She wondered if he'd heard the end of the conversation.  Maybe he'd been just outside the whole time, like he'd been hovering all night.   
      
Michi ignored the Marionette's comment about rehearsal, not being late.  She walked down the hall, not waiting for Jeremy as he answered. She walked and kept walking, clutching the script and speeding up until she heard footsteps racing after her and the bouncer calling her name.  
  
"Michi? Are you okay?" Jeremy didn't wait for her answer. He laid a hand on her arm, squeezing lightly. "Shit. He told you, didn't he?"       
Michi swallowed the sob in her throat, breathing in through her nose. She breathed out, and her voice was steady enough as she spoke. "Is that actually your name?"  
      
"What?"  
      
She breathed out again and spoke louder. "Jeremy.  Is that really your name?"  It seemed important for some odd reason, while her brain was still floating just a bit and staring at the wall sounded like a much better idea than meeting his gaze.   
      
"No, it's Perry. Perry McDermott."

“ _You’re_ Perry.” He was the one Rick had gone to speak with after the confrontation with the cupcake-nappers. He was the one the Marionette had compared her to. The argument with Teddy made a bit more sense now. That didn't excuse him. He'd known about the animatronics the whole _fucking_ time and he'd played _dumb_.

“Yeah.”  
      
"Why do they keep calling you Jeremy?"  
      
"Um," he was looking at her oddly, "because sometimes that's who I play, or sing as."  
      
"Oh," she said.  
      
"Are you okay?"  
      
Was she okay.  She was surrounded by animatronic characters from video games she loved, she'd just been threatened by their animatronic puppet overlord, because she'd written a short script and some sheet-music for a lark, five years ago.  It was ridiculous.  It was impossible and stupid and beyond crazy and-  
      
Now Perry was standing out of arms-reach and watching her warily.  
      
"What? Was I talking out-loud?"  
      
"You were kind of... screaming."

"Oh," Michi said, and now she _knew_ she was yelling, "pardon me.  I'm supposed to do a musical number with three guys I've never met, much less sung with.  We're supposed to harmonize.  I'm supposed to 'make everyone proud' or the Marionette's gonna put me into the next batch of cupcakes-"  
      
"Is that a joke?"  
      
She gave Perry a venomous look.   
      
"It was funny."

" _You_ never called a cab-"

"Yes," he said, very clearly, "I _did_."

Michi stopped dead, looking at him. Perry slumped against the wall. He looked exhausted as he threw a glance at the closed door and pulled off his hat, palming his short hair before sliding the baseball cap back on and meeting her gaze.

"First time, I told Beth to call you a cab. When you mentioned it later, I went to make the call myself. I picked up the phone," his voice had gone clipped, soft, "and was told _not to bother_."

Michi glanced back at the door, shivered and started walking again. She wanted distance between herself and the Marionette's office, even though clearly didn't make a damn bit of difference.

"Do you still have my number?" 

What the hell was he asking her that for? Did he want to go on a date _now_? She was unexpectedly busy at the moment-

"Did you look at it?" Perry asked without waiting for her to answer.

Michi clenched her jaw, dug into her back pocket and pulled out the business card. There was a phone number underneath angular handwriting.

_Quit before you get hired._

She bit her cheek on a curse and pushed the card into her front pocket. Michi backed up to the wall, sliding until she sat on the floor with her knees bent. She slid her fingers over her forehead, shading her eyes. 

"Thanks for the attempt?"

Perry sat down beside her. Michi glanced sideways at him. She set the script carefully in her lap and put her hand in the one turned upwards on his leg. 

"You try to learn the rules of the world around you," she muttered, closing her eyes and kneading fingers into her forehead. "You spend your whole life doing it. Then, just when you think you've got a handle on things, something new happens. You start a new job. You move to a different state. You get kicked out of your apartment. You have to find a way to re-shape your life, learn the new rules, and keep a handle on the ones that still work despite the reshuffling you did-"

"Then something like this happens," he murmured, "and even though nothing changed, everything has. Because this kind of thing doesn't change your world. It changes _you_."

"I'm not the victim here," Michi whispered. "I _know_ I'm not-"

"You're one of them," Perry interrupted grimly. "But on the scale, it's a smaller crime."

"It's not even about not wanting to do this," Michi admitted. "I love the song. But..." she let the thought go unfinished. Perry didn't prompt her, didn't fill the silence. He let it envelop them. He squeezed her hand. Michi squeezed back. Foxy had told her they wouldn't hold it against her. They knew. They all had to know. Bonnie had told her the truth of their existence without accusation. They had been very kind. But how much of what they said was putting on a brave face for the kids, who didn't know the truth? How much was for their _own_ benefit, as if they could keep the performance from affecting them through sheer force of will? They were already hiding what they were, _who_ they were, out of necessity. Accepting the necessity of something didn't make you _okay_ with it. It didn't make this- the script she had written- _okay_. The Marionette had told her to 'make it better'.

"I'm not sure I know how to do this." The binder sat heavy in her lap despite its thinness, poking into the crease of her hip. Michi didn't bother to shift it.

Perry made a sound of acknowledgment. "I remind myself that I'm not doing it because Marionette pushed me into it. I'm doing it because I want to help them."

"Does that... work?"

"Most of the time."

She nodded slowly, once. She could accept that. "I'm still out of practice," Michi said. She went for humor and her voice only shook a little.  "Granted, I _do_ frequently break into song. Problem is, lately that song has been _The Wheels on the Bus_ and for a very forgiving audience."  
         
"Michi?"  
         
"Damnit, Jennifer," she snapped at the familiar voice, because it was an easy, _comforting_ fall-back. " _Stop_ sending people my resume!"  
         
Jen, leaning around the green room door into the hall, grinned sheepishly.  The two heads close to her bore familiar faces.  Teddy, and Rick. Michi ground the heel of her palm against her forehead. This wasn't, Michi reminded herself, surprising. She'd already _known_ they were lying to her. She just hadn't realized for whom.   
      
"Guys, Michi.  Michi, guys," Perry said, pushing to his feet and bracing Michi with their joined hands. 

Michi sighed as she got up, slapped the script against her thigh a few times, then pointed it at them.  "You," she swung around briefly to include Perry, "are _all. Fibbers._ "  
      
" _Oh man_."  
      
Michi turned around, saw Bon (back in his own suit) and Chica in the hallway. The latter was beaming at her.  
      
"She really _is_ you," Bon laughed.  
      
"I-"  
      
Bon smirked and pointed.  "Your earrings are cupcakes.  Any argument you make is invalid."

Michi wasn’t sure what she would have said but Bon sidled behind Chica for protection, still smirking. It was then Michi realized she’d been coiling the binder into a tube and tightening her grip on the end. So. Her impulse had been to smack him with the tube. The question was; had it arisen from the precedent set during the show of bodily harm being threatened and sometimes administered to the Bonnies by the Chicas? Or had she just wanted to smack him because she wanted to smack him? Either way, she would have been proving him right.

Michi didn’t get a chance to figure it out because Jen wrapped hands around her arm and led her through the green room. They walked past the dressing room and down the hall to a solid door with a little glass window and a set of lights on the wall.

"The cupcakes were your idea," Michi hissed at Jen. Annoyance and embarrassment were easier, _so_ much easier, and she gratefully accepted the distraction.  
      
"Tell me they're not your favorites, Miich," Jen sing-songed. 

Jen pulled her through the control room and into the live room. It was empty but for the microphones hanging from the ceiling and a long table set against the wall. Jen let Michi go and kept walking, reaching down to fiddle with an mp3 player in a sound dock. 

"This shouldn't be too difficult," Rick said, last one in the room and shutting the door behind him. "We slowed the song down a little to make it more somber and we've been practicing your script, so in a way, you know this better than we do.  We'll just run through the music a few times-"  
      
"Yeah," Teddy said, "Chi does a pretty good version of your voice, so we-"

Michi stared at him.  Rick sighed.   
      
"Michi," he said, "can you pretend you didn't just hear that?"  
      
"Jen," Michi said, strangled, "please start the song?  I'll just... listen to you three once-"     
      
"Actually," Rick interrupted, politely enough. "Teddy.  You sing Bonnie and Chica the first time.  Michi, when you feel comfortable, jump in on the chorus."  
      
They both nodded, and Jen pushed a button on the mp3 player.  She could do this.  She could focus.  Michi breathed as an instrumental version- done by the Fazband, probably- of _Balloons_ flooded the room.  Michi let it sink in, flipping through the script. They'd kept the division she'd written... so far as she could remember, they'd kept all of it. There were things she would have changed in retrospect (even before she learned the truth about the animatronics), but knowing how it was supposed to go would make this simpler. Michi blinked as Teddy bumped her elbow with his.  He winked at her before relaxing his face-      
      
" _So many years, so many dark memories-_ "  
      
She was surprised, actually, how lovely his voice was.  She'd heard Rick on stage, but what the hell were they doing, having Teddy tend bar?  Maybe the men switched parts now and then?  They didn't have much for the 'guards' to do, really.  But this... this was okay. It was just rehearsal. She’d done this before.  
      
" _It's already almost dawn-_  
_Just like balloons, we soar on our own,_ "  
      
Michi breathed in.  
      
" _Finally free from the pain of our home-_ "

She knew the words. That was fine. She could blend well with the men, their voices were perfect for their roles and they gave themselves over to the emotion of the song. She felt like she had the first time she'd heard it sung by the guys at Starlake, also fans, who'd been up for a little improv. Michi loved the original. She did. She loved the way Mandopony had layered his own voice to simulate a trio. PurpleRoselyn's cover had been lovely, but she wanted a version with all the characters at the same time. So she'd written one and bugged her colleagues into performing it with her.

Hearing it from these men, watching their faces contort with the emotion of the song... they were better than her former colleagues. They weren't just singing for amusement's sake. They were _acting_ , and they were believable. Michi blinked tears out of her eyes as they finished the song a second time. Rick looked somber but professional as the music went silent. He stared at the script, not their faces.

“Good. Let’s do the chorus a little more pronounced,” Rick murmured as the song went silent. He flipped through the script. He'd borrowed it from Michi after the first run-through, reassured that she remembered all the lyrics. "Right after the second chorus, I’ll sing the echo.” He glanced at her. Michi felt a distant flare of surprise that he was asking her opinion. Librettist or no librettist, she was the new kid here. 

"Freddy should have a little more to do solo, coming in so close to the end," Michi murmured. Rick nodded agreement. 

“Jen,” he said, closing the script, “let’s pick it up from Foxy’s intro.”

“You got it," Jen sounded hoarse, and cleared her throat as she manipulated the buttons on the player. Michi glanced at her. Jen pressed a sleeve hastily to her cheeks, but her eyelashes were still wet in the dim lighting. She was crying. Perry had turned away from the group, facing the wall for a moment before shaking his head a little and turning back. His eyes were too bright.

Perry breathed in through his nostrils, out, and in again as the music queued up. 

“ _Just little children_  
_not at all strange,_ ”

Michi breathed, and swallowed. Perry’s eyes closed slowly as he sang, and his face contorted before he regained control. He turned it into something soft, innocent,

“ _Until the lights went out_  
_and everything changed_.

 _Alone and afraid_  
_for oh, so long,_  
_wondering what_  
_did we do wrong?_ "

He looked heartbroken, pleading for the answer to a question that had none. That was real. This, _this_ was real. This had _been_ real. Not the killer animatronics, not the spring-coil suit, not the blast doors or the desperate rationing of power. 

One day a monstrous human being had led five children into the darkness, and they had come out as something else. Michi put a hand, shaking, over her mouth, and didn't realize she'd missed her cue until the men went silent, and Jen turned the player off.

"I can't," she whispered. She glanced at Rick, grimaced in apology, then looked at the floor. "Perry," she was crying, and she felt stupid, and the rest came out in a tumble, half intelligible, "you have no idea how badly I need to hug you right now."

Perry closed his eyes, nodded and gestured for her to come closer. Michi did, putting her arms around his waist, sinking against him as his arms wrapped around her back. Michi bit down on the sob clawing at her throat and tried to breathe. He rubbed her back once, hand stroking up between her shoulder blades and resting on the left, _holding_ her. She rested there for a moment, trying to collect herself. Everything else was silent as squeezed him in thanks, and they both let go. Michi nodded again and stayed there, standing close to him. She stared at the wall as she calmed down, wiping her eyes. She cleared her throat.

"I can't," she said, and her voice was almost normal. "I wrote that script as macabre as I could think to at the time, meant as the epilogue for some kind of Broadway version of the games or some _shit_. I was trying to showcase the four singers, put emphasis on the tortured souls aspect of the lyrics and I..."

"It's just a song, Michi," Teddy said, trying to reassure her.  
      
"It's not, man," Perry murmured.  "You know it's not."

"They didn't perform _Jaws_ ," Michi said through gritted teeth. "They had Bonnie sing _Open Up_. Freddy wrote everything in the show but the Marionette had to use _my_ stage direction for _Balloons_ and you expect me to believe it doesn't have something to do with Freddy being too fucking _traumatized_ to put those on stage?"

Teddy looked ready to protest, but Rick nudged the side of his foot. Teddy closed his mouth, swallowed. 

"So the Marionette gets us to perform as ghosts of the murdered children withing in guilt and torment, without even the comfort of holding each other's hands. We do that, while the _actual_ murdered children do, what? Puppet their endoskeletons onto the stage for use as backdrop while they go hide in another room so they don't have to watch? Maybe they can deal with that, but they _shouldn't have to_." The others didn't try to argue the point, or give her platitudes. Michi found that reassuring. "What's the Marionette trying to accomplish with this?" she asked, looking at Perry. Michi didn't expect an answer but she was asking him, all of them, to think about it. "Is he trying to hurt them? Trying to make _us_ do it? Or is he just some jackass enragement child who isn't even thinking about how it'll affect the others?"

The men choked, and it was probably half out of relief that Michi's tirade hadn't summoned a voice over the speakers, or one of the animatronics pounding on the door. Jen grinned. Michi was glad for it. She knew she was in this, they _all_ were, and there was no getting out of the performance. Maybe she couldn't let go of this point, but that didn't mean she wanted to make them feel as horrible as she did.

"I don't think it's as complicated as all that," Rick offered. "We want the closing number to stick in people's minds, to send the feeling of the song home with them-"

"Exactly," Michi said, pointing at him. "This song says 'You get to leave the pizzeria but you never get away from the trauma you suffered here'."

Teddy's laugh was almost a bray, a sudden blast of sound, quickly hidden in a fit of coughing. Rick smiled, but his eyes were wet, and Perry's chuckle was bitter. 

"Nailed it," Jen murmured, smiling sadly. Michi breathed, and started giggling. She couldn't help herself, laughing out of desperation, trying not to cry and doing it anyway. It was funny. In any other situation it would have been hilarious. She accepted the hug when Jen approached her, holding her friend hard. "You don't want to hurt them anymore. I know. I know, Miich."

"So what do we do about this?" Teddy sighed.  "It's not like we can go in and tell the boss 'oh, by the way, we're not going to do that song you've been waiting to debut for two weeks'.  That's a good way to get ki-"  
      
Michi looked up in time for Rick to slap Teddy in the stomach with the back of his hand.  
      
"Fired," he grunted.  "I meant fired.  Sorry.  Occupational habit."  
      
"We change the song?" Perry shrugged.  Teddy stared at him.  
      
"Change the lyrics of a song by MandoPony?  Yeah, that's a good way to get stuffed into a suit by the _audience_."  
      
"Not the lyrics," Rick said, flipping open the script.  Jen let Michi go and they both moved to flank him.  
      
"Not the lyrics," Michi agreed.  "The stage direction."  
      
Rick fumbled with the sheaf of pages for a moment before getting impatient and ripping it in half, setting both on the table.  He grabbed a pen out of his pants pocket.  Michi found one tapping her hand, courtesy of Jen.  She took it and flipped to the first page of the script.  
      
"Okay," she said, spreading both hands over the paper.  "Shinbusters on each of the animatronics from the back, and spotlights center-stage.  Spotlights bright enough that people can see the dust particles in the air-"  
    

Jen pulled her foot, in a soft ballet shoe, onto the seat of the chair.  The shoes were the same faint gold as the rest of her costume.  Colorful enough to imply who Jen was playing, washed out enough to indicate that they were ghosts.  Michi was trying not to get any powder on it, shimmer or no shimmer.  Lucky her, the sleeves of her costume billowed enough that she could hook them over her shoulders until later. 

The costumes were more clever than she'd envisioned. Her dress was off-white and pale yellow, it was difficult to see the pinafore design, but it was there, and the shape resembled a bib. The excess fabric in the sleeves suggested wings, and there were draw-strings at the neck and sleeves like a child's dress, made to be adjustable. Jen's was simpler, a loose shirt and pants of pale gold that billowed just a bit. The men, Jen had told her, had similar, pale violet, red and brown. Foxy's clothes were a bit tattered and he had a poet's shirt. Freddy had a button-down shirt and vest, Bonnie a button-down and half-tied bowtie. The costumes were to represent the characters, but simply. The fabrics were generally monochrome and the colors were washed-out. The clothing was loose. They weren't really the animatronics, and they weren't quite the children anymore. They were echoes. 

"Jen?"  
      
"Hmm?"   
      
Michi dabbed a makeup brush into the powder, glittery, also pale gold, and drew it down a lock of Jen's hair.  "You didn't tell me."  
      
Jen looked at her in the mirror, solemn.  "You remember weeks ago, I came to your house at two in the morning?"  
      
Michi smirked, "Yeah.  Drunk on a Tuesday."   
      
Jen only looked at her.  Michi's smile shrank, and disappeared entirely.  Jen had shown up, morose, insisting that she was fine, but she needed someone to hold her.  Michi had, and eventually they'd both fallen asleep on the couch.  Michi had gone to work but Jen had stayed over for the day. She'd cooked them both dinner after Michi came home to find her on the computer, playing _Five Nights at Freddy's_.

"I didn't tell you," Jen agreed.  "You _can't_ tell anyone."  
      
Michi swallowed, nodded.  You couldn't tell anyone.  Not because of security or non disclosure agreements or threats.  If you loved the person and knew they'd believe you, you didn't want to burden them with knowing.  Jen didn't tell her because she hadn't _wanted_ to.  
      
"What changed your mind?"  

The smile crept over Jen's face slowly, surely, and her tone was mischievous. "Because this is the best job _ever_."

"Even with the Marionette?"  
      
"He likes _me_ ," Jen protested.  
      
Thank god for that.  "Everybody likes you." Michi capped the powder and poked Jen in the cheek. "You're that kind of person.  Regardless, I already _have_ a job."  
      
"This would be compatible with your job.  This is a _night shift_."  
      
"Quit while you're ahead," Michi said, shuddering.   
      
"Pays $120 a week-"  
      
"You're not funny.  At all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Balloons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJvQJ9Nz09k) by MandoPony  
>  Yes. Yes I _did_ cry the first time I listened to this song.   
> [Jaws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLLILq2bnU) by Aviators


	10. Enjoy the Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation with Chica, and the final number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multitudinous thanks once again to Ceci for the beta work and encouragement. 
> 
> Thank you, everyone who read. I hope you enjoyed the story! I intend to post the stage direction that I wrote for the story, so you can get a more detailed look at what I envisioned for the show. I hope you'll find that entertaining as well... when I finally post it.

Jen was brushing Michi's hair when someone knocked on the door. 

"Ladies?"

"Come in, Perry," Jen answered. He opened the door, leaned his shoulder against it. Michi smiled faintly at the sight of him in costume, puffy sleeves and red powder dusting auburn hair. He smirked at her before grimacing at Jen. Jen sighed. "Problem?"

Michi's first thought was 'shit, the Marionette finally decided to call us out on the re-write'. Perry sucked a breath through his teeth.

"Teddy could use a pep talk."

Michi winced. In the course of re-writing the stage direction, Teddy had raised more than one concern. What if they pissed off the fans? What if they pissed off the animatronics? The new screen direction was more complex, and what if they screwed up? Jen tried to tell him he was over-reacting. He was a bar tender who participated in the dinner show. He had improv experience through his interaction with the patrons. He'd answered that this was on stage. He'd protested that he didn't have this level of experience.

Michi, more concerned with the writing than why Teddy was so nervous, had left it to Jen and Perry to respond. Michi only half-listened to the conversation (growing more and more intense behind her and Rick) until Perry barked Teddy's name. She had glanced at them then, and watched Perry grab Teddy's shoulder.

" _If Marionette actually tried something? Gold would kick his ass._ "

So apparently she wasn't the only one among them who found the Marionette intimidating.

Jen sighed. "He's worked here the longest of any of us and he's done impressions of Bonnie that had the patrons doing double-takes." She handed Michi the hairbrush and headed for the door. 

Michi cleared her throat, and rather than remind them once again that technically she was responsible and should therefore take the blame (it hadn't been well received the _first_ time she said it, and wasn't likely to calm Teddy down), she looked at Jen. 

"My ground rules are the same as always."

Jen blinked, then hummed and nodded. Perry shifted out of the doorway and looked at Michi.

"Ground rules?"

Michi resisted the urge to rub her face- she didn't need to smudge her ghost makeup- and grimaced at Perry. "When I still worked with Starlake, Jen could reassure me that I knew the role by telling me to just _be_ the character. So she might go tell Teddy to _be Bonnie_. In which case, he's about to get a lot more physical with me." Michi watched Perry react to that; a grimace, but no protests. Good. Better than good. They might have that date yet. In the meantime, she was supposed to be doing something with her hair. Pigtails were the most juvenile thing she could think of, but she was supposed to look young, not ridiculous.

"Perry, may I borrow Michi for a moment?" 

Chica bustled into the room without waiting for an answer. Perry abandoned Michi with a wry grin and pulled the door shut. Chica took up Jen's place behind Michi's. Then, like every stylist Michi had ever been to, Chica took up two handfuls of Michi's hair and drew them forward over her shoulders. She pulled gently at Michi's curls, finger-combing them to see how they framed her face. 

"Hairbrush."

Chica was very businesslike about the situation, and Michi found that calming. She offered up the brush and Chica smiled. It still wasn't obvious from the beak- only that her eyes crinkled at the edges. She brushed Michi's hair back and collected her forelocks, securing them near her crown with a few well-placed bobby pins. It was simple, just enough to get her hair out of her face and let the rest fall. Michi looked softer this way, younger and old-fashioned. 

"Thank me for not getting out the hairspray and giving you five more inches on the top."

Michi choked. Chica smiled a little wider, clucking in amusement. She reached for the open jar of powder and a brush. 

"Thank you, Chica," Michi said obediently. Her lips twitched. "Should the men be glad that they don't have to wear mullet wigs? Aside from Perry." Who probably did have to, while performing as Jeremy.

"Perry," Chica said primly, "is _thrilled_ to wear his mullet wig, as well he should be, because I made it. Well," she corrected herself, "I styled it." She dabbed powder on Michi's hair, her expression pleased. 

Michi sat in silence, watching her in the mirror. If Michi's stare was particularly heavy, it didn't seem to phase Chica. 

"Go on," she murmured, not looking up. "You've been asking everyone else. Well. Aside from Gold, but she's cagey, and you aren't likely to get the opportunity."

Michi swallowed. She didn't have anymore questions. Or, she did. But they didn’t seem important anymore.

"I'm sorry." 

Chica blinked, looking at Michi through the mirror, and then _looking_ at her. Chica set down the jar and cupped a hand over Michi's shoulder. "Oh, sweetie." 

Michi dug her fingernails into the heel of her palm and tried to concentrate on the burn there instead of in her eyes. She tried to see the animatronic instead of the terrified, grieving little girl who had learned what death was by _watching it happen_ to her best friend and then come after her next. She tried not to start crying _yet again_ , but they were alone in the dressing room. It was private, and Michi felt safe. Chica leaned over her shoulder, pressing her cheek carefully against Michi’s temple. 

“Go ahead,” Chica said firmly. “The makeup is waterproof.”

Michi laughed. Chica plucked a few tissues from the box on the table and pressed them into Michi’s hand as the first tears fell. Michi's hands shook, but she carefully blotted the tears on her cheeks. Chica rubbed a thumb over her shoulder. 

“Of course this happens when I can’t hug you for fear of wrinkling the dress.” She winked and lifted her hand to twitch another lock of Michi’s hair over her shoulder. Chica straightened, went back to applying powder to Michi's hair.

After a moment, she hummed softly. “You don't need my forgiveness, but you have it. We may not be as alike as Mari would have you believe, but I know you didn't mean any harm." Her beak tightened and she kept her gaze focused on Michi's hair. "Mari... he never got closure. He helped us get ours, but... I think he's still looking for someone to blame. Someone to punish. So his reaction to you was... out of proportion."

Michi’s fingers tightened on the tissue, then she set it down carefully. That comment sounded like an _understatement_ , but she thought perhaps... it wasn't surprising. Between the script and her little rant earlier, she hadn't endeared herself to the Marionette at all. Still. 

"I think his motivational speeches leave something to be desired."

"Sweetie-pie," Chica muttered, "you are _preaching_ to the choir."

Michi sat still as Chica finished, then capped the powder and moved around the chair. She leaned against the desk, crossing her arms over her apron. The forgiveness... though Michi still felt guilty, at least they had absolved her, again and again. Chica smiled. 

"You look ready. How're your power reserves?" she asked, tone mischievous.

"I'm at five percent," Michi said, deadpan. "Just shove me back in the suit."

Chica burst out laughing. 

"What?"

Chica kept laughing, reaching a feathered hand to twitch a sleeve of Michi's costume. Michi glanced at her reflection, stopped herself just before she slapped a hand to her face.

"Oh god _damn_ it," she muttered.

Chica only laughed harder.

 

Teddy was waiting in the hallway. 

Michi opened her mouth to reassure him- she didn't get that far before he was hugging her. She heard Chica make a considering noise before there was another arm around Michi's back and Teddy grunted in surprise. So they might be a little wrinkled during the song. Michi didn't care. Chica let go first, clucking softly as she walked away. Michi patted Teddy's ribcage, shifted until he eased up a bit and she could more comfortably wrap her arms around him. Michi rubbed his back.

"It'll be fine," she murmured. "We just have to get into the spotlight and group hug. It's all good."

"It's _not_ that simple. I've seen rehearsal. I know how easily you can mess up when you've done this _multiple times_ ," he was whispering, frantically, in her ear. "I haven't been marked up for anything, but do you know how many bottles I've dropped since I started work here? Foxy almost killed me-"

"You're so cute," Michi said teasingly, "I can feel your heart racing!"

Teddy flinched. He loosened his grip enough to look her in the face. Michi smiled sweetly. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her hands resting lightly on Teddy's hips. Then- he got it. His bewilderment turned into a smile, then a sly grin. He slid an arm around her shoulders and Michi settled against his side.

"About time you had a brand-new plaything?"

Michi giggled and tugged him forward. "C'mon, _Bonnie_."

 

Hands, human and animatronic, touched her arm or shoulder as they moved through the darkness behind the curtain. Michi smiled at Foxy's salute, and leaned into the arm that Chica wrapped around her waist.

" _Well! It's almost 6am_ ," Chi's voice announced over the speakers. She and the other kids were in the stage control booth. 

Michi hoped they would enjoy the performance. She hoped _someone_ on the audience level would enjoy it. Whatever she'd told Teddy, she hated doing this with minimal rehearsal and Jen's part entirely improv because when Michi first wrote the script, she hadn't _thought_ about adding someone for Golden Freddy and... yeah. Typical performance. Hold your breath and count to three, hope that you don't fuck up- whee~

Michi grinned. She and Jen had indulged in that little bit of tradition before in the dressing room and... she got it. She wasn't happy about what Jen had done, but she got it. Some part of her had missed this, and Jen knew that. Michi had missed the creativity, the expression of it. She'd missed the feeling of working with other performers to write something beautiful and then acting it out. She'd missed the rush of trying to make the audience _feel_. As much as she loved working at the daycare, _this_ made her heart beat faster and lit up her mind. She'd wanted it even as it was something she'd told herself she was better off without. 

" _It's been a real thrill to have all of you here with us_ ," Bon said, " _but it's about time for us to shut down for the day_!"

Everyone moved into position. Chica squeezed her shoulders, and Michi squeezed her hands in turn before Chica settled into 'sleep' position and she noticed Rick waving a hand at her. He grinned when she met his gaze, mimed a fist-bump. Michi smiled, returned it. She took a deep breath and blew it out. She grinned at the sound of Mangle's static and kiss. Balloon boy laughed. The microphone on her headset clicked on. The curtains opened.

" _So we're going to send you off_ ," Fred murmured, " _with one last song._ "

The music began. Michi carefully did not smile as the audience spent five seconds losing their shit. The shinbusters brightened slowly, lighting them and the animatronics from the back. The spotlights followed seconds afterward, blinding by the time the strings came in, and Teddy was already moving forward, pausing just at the edge of the light, reluctant to touch it. But that was part of the script. He pushed his fingers into the illumination, slowly, carefully.

Michi was already following, hesitant. Even at a slower tempo, the song moved so quickly, and she had to follow, as quickly as the game, slowly as the melody.

" _So many years_ ,  
_so many dark memories_ ,"

Be Chica, she thought to herself, and curled her hands into loose fists.

She was afraid. Bonnie was going somewhere... they _all_ were. She didn't know where but... she couldn't let him go alone. So many times they'd moved around the pizzeria and she'd never... 

" _So many fears_  
_we've now put to ease_ ,"

She was afraid to touch the light. She didn't want it on her hands... she didn't want to see the blood. She tried to explain to him. She wanted him to understand before...

" _Pain makes you do things_  
_you never knew you could do_ ,"

But he was looking at her, reaching out for her. Like he didn't care. Like he knew, but it didn't matter. He was smiling. So she reached for him in turn.

" _Is this all real_ ,  
_or just deja vu?_ "

They wouldn't touch. She couldn't... her hand would go right through his. But she reached anyway, trembling... and his hand was real. It was real, and it was holding hers. She stepped closer to him, into the light, but she _needed_ to be close to him. Everything was strange. The pizzeria was silent and dark around them, discarded hats littered the floor, the banners hung in tattered fragments. There was no one here. No one but them. 

" _But now the party's over..._  
_now the guests are gone..._ "

He was nodding, following as she stepped nervously forward. He moved close, in case she wanted to lean against him. She did. She _needed_ to. She was scared.

" _It's already past our bedtime_  
_it's already almost dawn._ "

He was smiling at her, like he always did. He was excited... and it was easy to feel that way too, when he sounded so happy-

" _Just like balloons, we soar on our own,_ "

He was right. He was right, they were _free. Finally._ They didn't have to stay... even if she was scared of what lay outside the pizzeria. Even if she didn't want to say goodbye to their friends, she could feel Bonnie's joy, and share it.

" _Finally free from the pain of our home,_  
_and just like balloons that no one will hold_  
_free from the truth that no one will know._ "

No one? No one would ever know what had happened to them? She held Bonnie's hand harder. She wanted to back away from the light... she wanted- but she could hear Foxy. He was coming to meet them, and he sounded so sad.

" _Just little children_  
_not at all strange_  
_until the lights went out_  
_and everything changed_

 _alone and afraid for oh_  
_so long_  
_wondering what did we do wrong?_ "

They had been children once. Once... and what were they now? She didn’t know. She didn’t know and she was scared to ask. She didn’t know what they had done wrong, but she didn’t blame Foxy. She didn’t blame Foxy just like Bonnie didn’t blame _her_ and she moved close to him, letting go of Bonnie’s hand. She hugged him. Foxy hugged her back, but he still sounded so lost. 

“ _Now the party’s over_  
_and everyone is red,_ ” 

She remembered their guests. She could see what was left of them inside her mind, pressed into the suits and she- she wanted to throw up. She was horrible. She was a _monster_. She backed away from Foxy. She shouldn’t be hugging him, she wasn’t a good person-

“ _I feel sick to my stomach-_ ”

But Bonnie was close to her again. Foxy looked sad for her, for _all_ of them. They wouldn’t leave her, because they understood.

“ _Or am I sick in the head?_ ”

Bonnie was saying it again. How they were free, how they could leave. She and Foxy said it too, trying _so hard_ to believe it... because she couldn’t imagine forgetting this pain, this guilt. It _hurt_. It hurt _so much_. Even if it stopped hurting, she’d remember that she was awful, that they had made people hurt and they weren’t any better than, than... and if no one ever knew, no one could _forgive_ them. 

Then she heard Freddy- Freddy was here, with them. 

No one would know what had happened, but Freddy was here, and Gold was here... they had each other, at least. They had each other and they’d hurt people and it was awful but... they’d also found _him_. They’d also stopped _him_ , and he couldn’t hurt anyone else and... that was important, wasn’t it? It didn’t make up for anything, but it was good that he couldn’t be horrible to other children the way he had been to them... wasn’t it?

Freddy stood with them. He looked sad... but they all looked sad. He also looked... accepting. Nothing could change what had happened, but they were still _here_. They were free to... go somewhere else.

“ _All of the pain_  
_so far in the past,_ ” 

Freddy’s hand crept into hers and she held on tightly. 

“ _yet echoes of screams,_  
_forever will last,_ ” 

She reached out with her other hand, and Gold took it.

“ _Just like balloons, we soar on our own,_ ”

They all stood, holding hands, staring out into the darkness beyond the light, into the unknown. They were free, and they would leave together. They had freed themselves, and they were going to move forward. Even though it hurt. Even though they were scared. 

She felt a shadow fall upon them. She didn't have to look up to know it was the other boy, one who had given them this chance.

Maybe he would come with them.

Applause. She heard applause, the crowd screaming. The spotlight on them had gone dark, as desired. Michi glanced back as she noticed there was another one on- the Marionette was standing behind them, menacingly, as the script called for but she didn't care... Michi grinned so hard it hurt. 

They were there. They’d started the song in the usual positions, Freddy in the center, Bonnie and Chica on either side, Foxy far from the three of them. They had moved through the darkness, during the performance. The last thing the audience saw before the curtains closed was five animatronic figures in sleep mode, hands clasped, with Gold’s suit in front of them, slumped against Freddy and Bonnie’s legs.

Michi giggled as Jen exuberantly hugged her close and Teddy claimed her other side. 

“C’mon, kids,” Rick said, slinging an arm around Perry’s shoulders and shooing Teddy toward center stage, “time to take a bow.” Michi stepped forward (partly because Teddy wasn’t letting go of her) and Jen followed, her arm around Michi’s waist. They stood that way as the curtain opened again, clustered together, smiling and waving, bowing in unison before stepping back and letting the curtains close again. 

The animatronics stepped past them. Michi was grabbed in a hug by large arms, she felt faux fur and saw brown- and she barely had time to squeeze Freddy's arm before he was moving to join the rest of the band, pulling the Marionette forward to share their recognition. 

The curtain closed again, and over the public address system, the 6am chime sounded. Michi caught Jen’s gaze and grinned. They both mouthed ‘yay!’ Beyond the stage, the patrons were still cheering.

 

Backstage was not as chaotic as past performances at Starlake, but they still needed to change out of their costumes and collect any personal belongings before... Michi started to snicker, clinging harder to Jen as they walked down the stairs. 

"Collect any personal belongings before exiting the ride," she chortled, finishing the thought out loud. Jen, of course, knew exactly what she meant and began to laugh. So did Perry.

"Can someone stop the world? I wanna get off."

Michi only laughed harder. She was slap-happy. 

"Jen," Michi said, and at this point the only thing keeping them upright was _each other_ , "Jen, we need a cab. I need a shower and to fall into my bed, or possibly your couch. Or maybe my couch." Or maybe Jen's bed. She couldn't remember where they'd been planning to end up anymore. Whichever apartment was closer, probably. She liked Jen's couch. It was comfortable.

"You don't need a cab," Teddy said, grinning. "Rick can drive you home."

"Rick thought he was driving _you_ home," Rick said, "and that you lived on the other side of town."

Michi wondered if everyone already knew where she lived. Maybe they just knew where Jen lived and that Michi's place was the same direction, another twenty minutes outside the city. Now she remembered why she'd packed a bag that was sitting in Jen's living room and Jen's couch had already been converted to the pull-out bed. She loved Jen's couch so much.

Jen was laughing quietly, and helping her stumble toward the dressing room as the men argued about who was driving who and like hell Perry was driving Teddy anywhere. Rick didn't live close to any of them so they were all equally inconvenient. But he'd already said he would drive Teddy home and Teddy didn't _actually_ get a say in any of this because he didn't own a car.

Michi grinned even though she was crashing hard and knew it. She thought she heard the kids coming into the green room, congratulating the men, asking after them, and Mangle's static when Bon said he'd go help them get changed. Jen closed the door, and any response Bon made was lost outside it. Michi kept snickering. 

Michi plucked open the drawstrings at the ends of her sleeves, leaning her shoulder against the door so Jen could untie the belt and the drawstring at the neck. Michi pulled her arms out of the sleeves and let the heavy fabric slide over her shoulders, looping it around one arm so she could step out of the dress without getting makeup on it... she hoped. She and Jen both had glitter in their hair. She wanted to shake it off, felt bad at the thought of shedding it all over the dressing room floor. 

The Chica dress went in the hamper. Michi reached for her jeans, pulled them back on for the second time... she would be so glad to get to Jen's apartment. She sat on the couch to pull on her tank top and blouse. Jen, heedless of the powder in her hair, pulled the shirt over her head and let the pants fall on the floor.

"So, how was it?" Michi asked quietly. She hadn't seen Jen. She'd asked her to dance... and she wondered why they'd had a ghost costume for Gold... unless it had been made for some other number, re-purposed for this. Jen had spent twenty minutes during the rewrite sprinting around the pizzeria, updating Gold, updating Mangle (who had worked the lighting during their performance), getting the costumes and makeup out-

"Wonderful," Jen said, just as quietly. "I told you, I'll hold your coat anytime, Michi. Your coat, your flower, your beak-"

Michi spluttered, then snickered at that, covering her face with her hands. Jen shimmied into her clothes and shoes, then put her tiara back on. Michi smirked. She'd lost track of the tiara a while ago. 

"So, your wish come true?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Jen smiled, fingers on the little combs at either side, pressing them into her hair. 

"Happy birthday." She put out a hand for Jen to help her off the couch. When Jen pulled her up, Michi held on and hugged her friend close.

"Thanks," Jen murmured into her shoulder. "For all of it. I'm sorry too, but-"

"Don't be." Michi was tired, still a little angry, still a little frightened. Her heart ached and she was tilting on the edge of a 'why the _fuck_ are you still awake?' headache. But right now? She didn't feel regret. Michi kissed Jen's forehead, wiggled the crown a little. She turned to nudge her shoes out from under the couch with her bare foot. She had no idea how she was going to feel about this, hours from now. She didn't know what new apprehension would crop up after she'd had some sleep and utterly fucked over her time clock.

That was a problem for later.

When they were ready to leave, Michi wrapped an arm around Jen's shoulders, Jen around Michi's waist. Jen reached for the doorknob and Michi smirked. She felt... a little sassy. She cleared her throat, smiled and began to sing softly.

" _Toreador, en garde! Toreador! Toreador!_  
_Et songe bien, oui songe en combattant_  
_Qu'un ceil noir te regarde,_ "

Jen cackled, tossing the door open.

They stepped into the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Balloons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJvQJ9Nz09k) by MandoPony
> 
> Wikipedia entry on the[Toreador Song](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toreador_Song)
> 
> I'd like to acknowledge once again all the awesome people who wrote music inspired by the games- you've seen the links. The songs I've referenced only scratch the surface of what they've done, and there are a number of wonderful artists that I didn't directly mention. I hope you check them out!
> 
> Last but certainly not least [holy SHIT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-taWymx1WI) it's the trailer for FNAF4. O.o
> 
> .... Well done, Scott. I'm already terrified.


End file.
